


like fog through your fingers

by telanaris



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Excessive Hand-Holding, F/M, Food mentions, Ghoast, Haunting, Impossible Architecture, MC is wanted for Lucio's murder, Memory Loss, NSFW as of Chp.7, Role Reversal, Sharing a Bed, including some gratuitous food descriptions tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-30
Updated: 2019-07-07
Packaged: 2019-10-19 14:35:25
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 98,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17603183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/telanaris/pseuds/telanaris
Summary: Julian held her so closely that Aredhel could feel the curved buttons of his uniform press against her as they breathed, hard and heavy from running. Again she felt that treacherous heat in her gut, but when she looked up at Julian, she saw only the dark of his eyepatch, looking like a hollow in his skull in the dim of night. His head was turned to the side, peering back out onto the street from which they had come. His mouth was drawn tight; he breathed through his nose. He held her, but he held her tensely.It took her a moment, because she had never seen him wear this particular expression before, but at last Aredhel realized: Julian was afraid.“If they catch you helping me,” she whispered, “they’ll hang you, too.”Julian turned to look at her so quickly his curls bounced with the motion, his eye wide with surprise, mouth agape. He recovered quickly, though, forcing a grin. “Well, then, we’d better not get caught,” he said, and pressed closer to her, the folds of his overcoat falling around her like curtains.





	1. Prologue

 

The colorful floor tiles were cold as ice against the soles of her feet; the apprentice ignored her discomfort as best as she could. The spell she had just cast—a spell she should not yet have known, a spell her Master had not yet taught her—muffled her footfalls as she raced from bedroom to kitchen to closet, gathering the supplies she would need. Each of her breaths came quick and shallow. Wryly, as she stuffed half a loaf of bread and a handful of dried dates into her sack, she wondered if the spell she had cast would mask the beating of her heart. In her ears, the rhythm of her pulse seemed as loud as a circle of drums.

A breeze swept through the small dwelling; the woman shivered, then crossed the room to the closet. In the dark, her eyes could barely tell the difference between the shawls and coats hanging within, but she dared not risk a light. Instead she brushed her fingers against each garment, trying to discern by the texture of the fabric which clothes were hers.

...then again, were any of them truly hers? Or rather, hers _alone_? For as long as she could remember, they had shared everything.

Then again, ‘as long as she could remember’ was not terribly long—and that was precisely why she stealing through their home like a thief in the night, packing a bag, readying herself to leave.

She shook her head, willing the thoughts away. There was no time to second guess herself; if she was caught this time, she doubted she would get another chance. It was now or never. Her fingertips found the chevron-patterned knit of a shawl that the light would reveal to be dark red. A practical garment: she could drape it around her shoulders for warmth, or tie it around her waist if she needed to run. She closed the closet, then wrapped the shawl around her shoulders; she would need the protection against the night winds that were still dancing through the open window.

As she stole towards the door, her hands rummaged through the sack at her waist, feeling out the shapes of the few possessions she was bringing with her. The smooth wood of the flute, the cheesecloth holding her provisions… she mentally checked the sack’s inventory against the list in her head. For about the hundredth time in the past twenty-four hours, she cursed her luck. This was not how she had planned to leave. Under ideal conditions she would have written out a list; she would have packed with care, not haste. But the dream—no, the _nightmare_ —that she had suffered the night prior had galvanized her. She had woken with a scream on her lips, her nightgown soaked through with sweat, and a feeling in her gut as heavy as a stone. She had known, then, that she could no longer afford to wait for the right opportunity; she would have to make one herself.

(After all, her Master had always taught her to trust her intuition.)

And yet, as she stood on the threshold of the adobe, at the beginning of a journey she had dreamt of for so long (for _as long as she could remember_ , at least) she could not help but hesitate. And though she suspected it would wound her—though she knew it would make those last few steps out the door that much harder—still she turned to take one last look at the only place she could recognize as ‘home.’

Moonlight and starlight fell through the window beside the bed; the night wind stirred the sheer curtains that framed it, and gently batted at the colored glass and the bells that hung in its frame. Had she not cast the muffling charm over the house, she would have heard the delicate singing of those very bells.

 _‘How many mornings have I woke to that sound?’_ the apprentice wondered. And then, her stomach twisting, another thought came right on its heels: ‘ _If I go through with this, will I ever hear them again?'_

For three years she had lived in this adobe in the middle of the desert. The whorls and and stripes of the wood beams that ran across the ceiling were as deeply embedded in her memory as her own name. She loved their little home, filled as it was with haphazard piles of books, tchotchkes her Master had gathered from his journeys, and figurines carved from wood. She loved the garden that surrounded the house, the palm trees and succulents she had cared for, the generous cacti whose fruits she had collected for sustenance.

And the desert itself…! She would miss its warmth, and the tangy dry smell of the sun warming the sands, the salt… she knew the ridges of the distant mesas and buttes the way sailors must know the stars. After three years the sight of heat shimmering over the ground still mesmerized her, the look of it like a phantom, a ghost. She knew the desert sky like the body of a lover: she knew each of its blushes, when it tempestuousness portended a sandstorm or the blessing of rain.

But as she thought on these things, her eyes deliberately avoided the bed, and the sight of that which she loved most of all. If she looked at her Master it might break her. How often had he tried to dissuade her from this path? Last time, he had tears in his eyes, begging her not to think of leaving, to let go of the ghosts of her past. He had told her they would be no more use to her than the shimmer of heat on the dunes, just shadows, just a trick of the light.

The apprentice could not imagine the fear and the panic that would fill him when he found her gone in the morning. The guilt was a bitter taste at the back of her throat, but she would have to stomach it.

Her eyes were drawn to the white curls peeking out of the duvet. After she had gotten out of bed, he had nested himself in it, pulling the blankets tighter around his body, curled against the cold. The ample blankets rose and fell with each of his slow and steady breaths.

Another gut-wrenching thought came to her: ‘ _If I go through with this, will I ever see him again?_ ’

 _‘Of course you will,’_ the reasonable part of her answered. _‘No doubt he’ll be right on your heels, and that is why you cannot afford to linger.’_

Her eyes stung, but she set her face in an expression of determination. She was resolved.

She had made her choice—to whatever end.

“Sorry, Asra,” she whispered, allowing herself this one indulgence. Perhaps her apology, muffled though it was by her magic, would reach him in his dreams.

Then, before she had the chance to change her mind, she spun around, opened the door, and stepped out into the night.

  
  


During the day, under the sun, the desert was blisteringly hot; the sands would scorch the soles of the feet of anyone foolish enough to step onto them at high noon without shoes. The heat shimmered along the curves of the dunes like a reflection over disturbed water. It was unwise to venture outside without a broad hat or a white scarf to protect against the heat and the light.

But the sand cooled in the evening just as rapidly as it warmed to the dawn, and the abrupt drop in temperature send the desert winds howling across the plains, whistling between the buttes, chasing the warmth of the day. In the dead of night the desert could be frigid. As the moment the apprentice stepped out of the adobe, she could see her breath on the air, a clean puff catching starlight before the wind snatched it away. She wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

‘ _As long as she could remember_ ’ was not very long at all; the apprentice did not know if she had ever been religious in the part of her life now lost to her, those years long forgotten. She could not say whether she had been devout, attending worship in a temple nestled in a city she had never seen; or whether she had kept some private practice, a retinue of intimate and sacred rituals to tend to her spirit. Whatever the case, faith had played little part in the life she had shared with Asra. But as she tilted her head to behold the brilliant sky, dark blue and glittering with stars, she was filled with something like a prayer to behold it: a potent mix of awe and gratitude, of hope and humility.

She allowed herself a moment to lose herself in the constellations, awash in their beauty, their majesty, the sheer _vastness_ of the open sky above her—but only a moment. Then, she stepped off the doorstep, and out into the desert.

She tracked her distance from home without needing to count her steps. She knew the ridges of the distant mesas and buttes the way a child knows the eyes of her mother; their silhouettes against the constellations were enough for gauge how far from home she had come. She had tried not to walk too quickly—she would exhaust herself sooner if she did not pace herself—but her body was tense, and she had to fight against her instincts to keep herself from breaking into a run. Her ears kept listening for the sounds of footfalls or calls behind her, the distant slam of a door as Asra ran out after her into the night. But even the wind was quiet, and she heard little beyond the sounds of her own unsteady breathing.

She walked until she was out of earshot. She walked until she could no longer make out the shape of the adobe against the horizon, and then she walked further. By the time she came to a stop, her teeth were chattering. Slipping her hand into her sack, her fingers, turned clumsy and numb from the cold, searched the bag until they closed around the flute.

It still felt unfamiliar to her touch, though it was probably the first gift Asra had given her, after her accident. Her memories of those early days were patchy, but this, she remembered clearly: Asra kneeling in front of her on the bed, pressing a wooden rod into her hands. He had cupped his warm palms around hers, curling her fingers closed over the instrument.

 _“If something happens while I am gone,”_ he had told her, _“if someone that you don’t know comes to the door, play this flute. A friend of mine, someone you can trust, will come and take you someplace safe until I can find you.”_

Perhaps the memory was so ingrained in her mind because it had become, since then, a familiar ritual: every time Asra was leaving her alone in the house, he had pressed the flute into her hands. But in all those years since, she had never succeeded in getting him to tell her exactly _who_ it was that he was afraid would come looking for them, or why the thought made him so afraid. (It _did_ frighten him, and the apprentice could tell, no matter how he tried to hide it. Asra had been her closest companion for three years; she knew, by now, how to read him.)

His fear was made all the more alarming (and curious) by the fact that, otherwise, it seemed to have little place in their lives. It wasn’t as if she were not allowed out of the house. Most days, she accompanied Asra on his trips to the nearby village, where they would greet their neighbors and pick out produce for their meals, trading healing charms and talismans for pomegranates and horned melons. The villagers were their friends. More than once, Asra had fixed the villager’s well and the irrigation channels that ran from it.

But after some time, she began to notice the discreet way Asra would ask Sagauro when the next caravan was due to pass through the village to trade. And during times when the village was filled with traders, they never seemed to venture there, even if it meant they had to subsist for a few days on rice pudding alone. (Because Asra _always_ had the ingredients for rice pudding on hand, even if the cupboards were otherwise bare.)

This much had become clear: they were not living in the desert merely for its beauty, or its quiet, or the simplicity of the life it afforded them. Asra had brought her to the desert to hide.

And they were hiding well. Though she was only an apprentice and far from a fully-fledged magician herself, even she could sense the power in the charms and protections that Asra had woven over their home. She suspected the protections were so strong that they would have concealed the adobe from the view of any trespassers or intruders; they never would have even made it to the door. So, despite Asra’s fear, and his warnings, she had never felt unsafe in her own home. She had allowed him to press the flute into her hands each time he left her alone, and had promised to use it if she found herself in danger.

She had never used the flute—but she knew exactly the effect it would have, and whom it would call to her side. She brought the flute to her lips and blew; the desert wind carried away one single, resonant note, pitched high like the whistle of a bird.

Almost immediately, a new wind answered, and it carried an odor she had no name for: something like the wetness of their clay adobe after the rain, but greener. Sweeter.

Unnameable, but familiar. She hastily stashed the flute back into her bag and fumbled with its other contents. Her fingers closed over the drawstring bag she sought just as she spied something bright on the horizon, barreling towards her faster than she would have believed possible if the creature (and its speed) was not already known to her.

Her numb fingers struggled with the bag’s delicate strings, but by the time the beast loped to her side, she had already spilled four water chestnuts into her hand. The shaggy, silken hair that covered his body conspired with the darkness to hide the beast’s head from her, but when he released a warm, humid sigh of contentment, she turned towards it. No sooner had she done so, extending her hand, before a broad tongue emerged from the softness. It curled around the chestnuts in her palm and drew them into the beast’s mouth; she could hear the nuts cracking between the beast’s powerful jaws. Undaunted, she reached for him, patting him fondly before scratching him between the eyes in the place he liked best.

 _You are faaar from home_. No sound emerged from the beast’s throat, but the apprentice heard him anyway, a voice in her head as deep as the desert canyons and probably just as old. _What are you doing out here alone, little one?_

“I’m not alone,” she retorted brightly, with a mischievous grin. But the curiosity on his voice bordered on suspicion, and she took the drawstring bag in hand again, pouring a few more chestnuts into her palm before lifting it towards him. “You’re with me, old friend.”

The beast snorted. _For the present._

His tongue lolled out again, wet and warm against her hand. She could make out the gleam of one eye beneath that mass of hair, appraising her thoughtfully. _Why have you called me?_

She told him why.

There was no change in the beast’s outward appearance to giveaway his discomfort, but she saw his aura darken. _Asra would disapprove of this,_ he warned. _You should not leave Nopal._

But she had been prepared for the beast’s hesitance. “The last time I checked, Asra was _my_ Master, not yours,” she said, shaking the last of the water chestnuts—her best effort at a bribe—out into her palm. “You are free to bear me wherever it is you like.” She held her palm up to him, but at the first hint of his pink tongue peaking out of his hair, she hesitated, closing her fist around the chestnuts and drawing them back towards her body. “Unless, that is, you refuse.”

The beast made a sound like the nicker of a horse, but his sound was deeper, disgruntled. _It is unwise._

For a second time, she grinned. “And when have you known me to be wise?”

It did not have the effect she expected. Instead of a lecture or further condemnation, affection poured from the beast, the sudden warmth of the his aura welcome in the cold night. _You discredit yourself._ Then he sighed in resignation, and the sheer force of his exhale was enough to blow her shawl clean off her head.

_Very well, little one. Climb onto my back._

  


 

Light woke her, faint but distinct on the horizon. The stable rhythm of the beast’s body beneath her had lulled her into a thin kind of slumber, even as her fists had clutched tightly to the hairs on the beast’s back. Now, her fingers ached.

She flexed her hands one at a time, readjusting her grip as she wondered how far the beast had borne her. The blush of gold in the eastern sky was illuminating a world that was completely foreign. Tall grass tickled her knees, but it was cooler and more supple than any desert grasses she’d been familiar with in Nopal. As the beast crushed it underfoot, it released a sweet smell, a fragrance like rain and honey.

She lifted her head and directed her gaze in the opposite direction—to the western sky, where night was receding—then gasped, as she recognized the dark shapes just barely discernible in the dawn’s blush.

Inexplicably, her pulse accelerated. It felt as though her heart had jumped into her throat.

_Little one? What has excited you?_

She swallowed, found her throat dry. Her eyes were fixed west, locked on the grand, dark giants gathered there, fringed pillars stretching towards the sky.

She knew what it was. And though the sight was unfamiliar to her, it stirred within her a longing that was difficult to describe or explain but nevertheless threatened to overwhelm her. She wanted to shelter from the dawn in the cool shade beneath the boughs; she wanted the smell of leaves after rain, the feeling of damp earth between your toes. A ground so saturated with moisture that when it rained the dirt was too sated to swallow it, whole puddles of rainwater collecting in ditches, gushing along brooks….

“Is that—that’s a forest?” she asked, her voice hoarse from sleep, strained with poorly concealed excitement. “Those tall shapes—they’re all trees, aren’t they?”

_Yes, little one._

Her heart skipped a beat, then quickened its rhythm. “Can you take me closer?”

 _No_. The beast’s refusal was gentle, but firm. He did not turn, nor did his pace slow; if anything, his the rhythm of his gait quickened as he hastened past the trees. _There is a presence growing in the forest. It will not be safe for you._

That piqued her curiosity. “A presence? What kind of presence?” Her eyes strained in the dim half-light, as if mention alone would be enough to tempt the entity to reveal itself between the trees.

_I cannot name it. It is new to these woods, and unknown to me._

A maddeningly empty answer. She changed her tactics. “Well, whatever it is, you can outrun it, can’t you?” she asked, nudging the beast with her knees. Something inside her ached to be closer to the trees, a tickle in the back of her mind like it was trying to remind her of something important she had forgotten.

The beast met her flattery with a wet snort. _Little one, I agreed to bear you from Nopal. But I will not endanger you unnecessarily._

She did not even try to conceal her disappointment. She dropped her cheek to the beast’s warm back, watching as the forest was drawn further and further from them with each of the beast’s giant strides. She sighed.

The beast must have felt it; his pace slowed. _There will be trees in the city, too, little one. Groves and grottos, puddles and peonies._ His gait slowed again, dropping back into the same hypnotic rhythm that had lulled her to sleep. His last words were warm with tender affection:

 _Rest now, little one. Soon you will need your strength._  
  
  
  


_Quarantine poster on the door, ink of the signature still glistening—this does not stop her. The air is thick and threatening rain. Shackle pops free of padlock at the lightest touch of her hand, then the lock is discarded, the door flung open. Searching, searching—rows upon rows of simple wood frame beds, all empty, unmade, shrouded in darkness—shutters drawn. Call fire to palm, and the light spits, spills in fits and starts over the cabinets, the gleaming trays of metal medical tools. Nothing satisfies the gaze, refutes the gnawing fear. Tickle of cold sweat between the shoulder blades. Somewhere in the fire-licked dark is the answer. Light finds the far wall, and two doors set within it. One ajar—and beyond? Shelves crammed with flasks, tubes, beakers, ghastly instruments, spare uniforms. To the second door then. Then, hesitation. Trickle of sweat. Sob clenching gut. An answer she already knows, but still denies. Her hand closes around the doorknob, shoves—_

_—_ but instead of the secrets beyond the threshold, her eyes opened to a brightness so blinding she immediately squeezed them back shut. Back into the dark, steadying her breathing.

It was the same dream that had urged her to leave Nopal. It had given her a destination, a place to begin. Even if she wasn’t sure where she was going or how to get there, the dream had placed the path beneath her feet.

And just as it did then, the nightmare has left her a trembling mess upon waking.

 _‘I am on my way,’_ she says to herself, as if the anxiety that now holds her can be reasoned with. _‘I have left Nopal. I am coming with all the haste I am able to muster.’_

But the fear did not lessen. The nagging doubt did not lessen. She was left with was a feeling of urgency she did not understand, a call she did not know how to answer.

Her attention was drawn to the beast beneath her, slowing his pace to an easy amble. Cautiously this time, she cracked open her eyes to see why.

Tall stalks of wheat swayed in the wind, in a field as gold as any desert dune  It stretched down the hillside, right to the horizon until it met…. Her breath caught. It seemed like the grains of wheat were shuddering, working themselves into a frenzy of dizzying, glittering, molten gold. But her eyelids were still heavy with sleep; she blinked once, then twice, rubbing at her eyes.

Then she saw the truth of the horizon: it was not wheat nor fields of molten gold that stretched before her, but the orange glow of the dawn, dancing upon the lagoon.

Gods, she could not recall ever having seen so much water in her life. It seemed to stretch on forever, save where it was interrupted, here and there, by small island chains. Those same islands drew her gaze inward to the beaches along the coast, then to the harbor filled with sheltered ships, until her eyes fell upon a distant castle. Its white towers sparkled just as brightly as the sea. And held between the castle and the lagoon was a maze of a city, homes and plazas and the spires of temples, the green of gardens.

“Is that—”

 _Vesuvia_ , the beast answered. _Welcome home, little one._

She had slipped off the beast’s back and onto her feet before she could remember releasing his hair. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Asra told her precious little of her life before her accident, before the desert, before Nopal, but this, at least, she knew to be true: this city had been her home. _Vesuvia._ Whatever had happened to her to make her forget—it had happened here. She felt so close to her lost life, as though all her forgotten history waited under cobblestones and in tight alleys, waiting for her to come claim it.

Asra had begged her not to come here. She knew, however warm the homecoming, she would need to be on the lookout for danger at every turn, though Asra had not told her what form she ought to expect that danger to take. Still, her excitement won out.

She was _home._

The beast’s deep voice broke her reverie. _I must leave you here, little one. I cannot take you any closer._

She turned and smiled sweetly. “That’s alright,” she replied, already pulling her shawl off her shoulders and wrapping it around her skirt. “I can walk the rest of the way.”

The beast did not respond, nor did it move to leave. A purple eyelid opened to reveal a keen gaze. _You know he will not be far behind._

Her hands on her shawl came to a dead stop. Oh, Asra. He was going to be so worried when he found out she was gone, he probably _would_ run right after her, like a parent runs after a truant child. For all she knew he might have already discovered her absence, but it was impossible to say; Asra’s sleep schedule was nothing if not irregular.

Still, something in her was reluctant to concede as much to the beast. Her fingers resumed working on their knot. “You mean you won’t keep my secret?”

_I won’t have to. He’ll know where you have gone._

“Then I thank you for giving me the head start.”

She had not even turned around to face him, making herself busy by fussing with her clothes and staring at the city below them. The beast’s head butting against her shoulder came as a complete surprise. She knew his strength—she knew he was being gentle—but still the push, unexpected as it was, nearly knocked her over and sent her rolling down the hillside. She turned to find the beast staring back at her, his gaze imploring.

 _Little one,_ he began, _something strange is beginning in the city—I have felt it. It waxes like the presence in the woods._ He leaned his forehead against her cheek, the breath from his nose warm on her neck. _Be well, magician. And be careful._

He turned and left her. Then, for the first time in three years, she found herself truly on her own.

She did not know where to go. She didn’t have any money—Asra didn’t really seem to believe in money, bartering instead with magic charms and a seemingly endless supply of pearls and jewels he produced from Gods-knew-where. She did not know where she would stay the night, whether she would be able to sneak or beg her way into an inn or whether she would sleep on the streets.

But for now, she only dropped into the grass, happy to watch the dawn as it lit up the city. She felt an adventure beginning, the thought as invigorating as a chill morning breeze. Below her was everything Asra had tried to keep from her; below was the repository of all her hopes and fantasies of the last three years. Who she had been. Who she would become. All of her answers.

For now, though, the sight and the smell of the sea was enough.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/3/19- updated with beta PumpkinPillars' suggestions (see announcement in chp. 5)


	2. the echoes swell to nothing

_Vesuvia_. There was something so natural about the way the glittering city sat in the bowl of the lagoon, as though it were as intrinsic to the landscape as the sand that lined the coast. Aredhel supposed that this was because she had grown up here; that, even if she could not remember her time in the city, the view of it in the morning tickled the splinters of her shattered past, made the way that Vesuvia sat in the landscape as familiar to her as her own skin. The seaside city had called to her, across the desert, through her dreams, through the Arcana, and despite all of Asra’s efforts to keep her from it.

Now— _at last!_ —she was here. She was home.

This strange sense of homecoming, however, did not divest Aredhel of her caution. Outside the gates, before entering the city, she had glamoured herself, just in case.

Admittedly, doing so made her feel a little silly. She had come to Vesuvia to reconnect with her lost life, and yet she was going to return to it with a false face, the face of a stranger. This felt like capitulation, an early admission of defeat, an acknowledgement (however small) that perhaps Asra had been right to warn her against coming here. But she had been unable to keep from her mind the suspicion that whomever it was she and Asra had been hiding from in the desert, they were likely to be found in the city she was now approaching. And so, biting her lip, she had wrought the magic over herself, taking on a new appearance as easily as she might don a sweater.

Vesuvia had pulled her like a planet pulls a comet into orbit, and the sight of it from the hill had pulled at something deep and tectonic within her, but once she was winding along its blue canals and the tall, narrow buildings on the waterfront, her heart sank—she remembered none of it. The smells and the colors of the marketplace, the bells and calls to prayer sounding from the temple district, the palace of many towers that dwarfed all else around it—she had hoped that by filling herself with these things, she might open another part of herself, recover memories long lost. But the city evoked nothing, and instead of the much-desired illumination of her past, Aredhel felt herself lost in an opaque blankness. She had no memory of this place, its winding streets and narrow alleys, and she had no idea where to begin looking for her answers.

Disappointment slowed her step. True, it had been unreasonable—a wild hope, a particularly childish kind of fantasy—to expect her memories to come rushing back to her as her feet reacquainted themselves with the city’s cobbled streets. She had hoped, though, that she might find some clue, a trigger to her intuition, a path forward. Having failed in that, Aredhel, still glamored, relaxed her gait, and examined her surroundings.

She had come to a wide plaza, framed on each of its four sides by massive buildings, but dominated by the edifice in the east. It was the terminus of many aqueduct arcades, arching bridges which carried fresh water down into the city from some hidden source on the hill, nearer to the palace. Where these arcades met, a large structure had been erected, dominated by a massive astrological clock, and towers domed in blue. The facade beneath the clock face was punctuated by a succession of small portals, through which the aqueduct water then passed. As it fell the water dazzled, brilliant ribbons of light casting gems of reflected sun back across the plaza. The mist coming off the falls left the plaza cooler than the surrounding streets from which Aredhel had come. On each corner of the building stood the classical allegories of Justice and Victory, with Justice’s scales and Victory’s wings embellished with gold.

Aredhel had come, she realized, to the heart of the city; even at this hour, Vesuvia’s central square was busy with activity, citizens passing between districts, running errands. Within its center, a statue of a warrior on horseback guarded a fountain; a couple sat on its lip, holding hands.

Still, none of this was familiar to her; none of it hinted at what the years of her life here had been like. Well, best to take matters into her own hands, then—there was no use in aimlessly crossing the city, hoping she might find what she sought by happenstance. Aredhel pivoted in place, squinting in the sun, looking at the entrances to the different city districts. Perhaps Vesuvia had a Magician’s Guild. That wouldn’t be a bad place to start, though she had no idea how to go about finding such a place—

She froze. All thoughts of strategy fled from her.

But it was no mistake. At once, it became painfully clear: she had no memory of this place, the aqueducts and canals, the streets and alleys, but the city remembered _her._

Across the square, their armor gleaming, a pair of palace guards were mounting a poster upon which was printed an unmistakable likeness of her face, staring out above her name, and below the words ‘WANTED’ and ‘DANGEROUS.’

Her glamor slipped—she flickered. Her fear snuffed out her magic out like a candle. Aredhel panicked; she reached for the wisps of that fading magic and seized it, regaining control of the illusion just in time. Her breathing turned shallow; she hardly dared to move as she looked around her, but nobody paid any attention to her. A few of the passersby gave her quizzical looks as they passed, but no more. The magic had stabilized.

But she was beginning to panic, and she knew she would not be able to hold onto the glamor for much longer. Heart pounding like hooves against the ground in a stampede, she ran from the plaza, deeper into the city—

_‘Please,’ Asra had begged her with tears in his eyes, spilling down his cheeks, a waste of water in a place where water was so precious, ‘please, Aredhel, it’s dangerous, don’t go back there—’_

—and now that she had seen the fresh poster being mounted, her eyes were drawn to every paper on every building. Everywhere, she saw her face. Many of the posters featuring her likeness were no more than ancient tatters, battered by the weather, ink faded by the sun. But in the town square—oh, the guards had _tens_ of rolled posters still with them. By nightfall, the city would be covered with fliers declaring her not only a criminal, but a murderer:

_WANTED for Questioning by the County: Aredhel Mooney, for the Assassination of the Count Lucio. Do not attempt to apprehend; suspect is likely ARMED & DANGEROUS. _

Cool sweat rolled down her back, and one thought came to her: ‘ _I should have been more careful.’_

She ran, deep into a quiet and dilapidated district that smelled keenly like the lagoon, of fish and of sea. The docks must have been close, but even so, the streets she now found herself in were quiet. She was winded, and her legs were burning, and if she didn’t allow herself a moment to drop her glamor she was going to pass out from the exhaustion of maintaining it.

She ducked out of the street and into a dark alley, mercifully cluttered, full of debris among which to hide. Behind the wreckage of a wagon she found a wooden crate; a sigh of relief slipped from her lips as she sat and let her glamor fall. Still, panic had not divested Aredhel of her caution; after a deep breath her fingers began unknotting her shawl from her waist, then draping it over her head despite the heat, using the fabric to conceal her face as best as she could. She had seen no one in the street, but it was not worth it to risk being recognized for the balm of a sea breeze on her cheeks.

Asra had _begged_ her not to come here. Now, she understood why. She could not remember a time in which she had been in so much danger. Gods strike her down, Asra had actually _dropped to his knees_ , his tears staining her skirt as he took her hands in his and begged her not to come to Vesuvia, to stop asking him about it, to let go of what had happened here. It had moved her heart… but it had done nothing to sate her curiosity.

 _‘I should have listened to him.’_ She knew that, now.

Then again, it would have been far more effective if Asra had simply told her the truth: ‘ _The Vesuvians think you killed their Count evaded capture, so if you don’t want to end up executed, it’s probably a good idea not to go back there._ ’ Aredhel was curious, but she wasn’t suicidal; if Asra had only told her coming back here might mean _losing her head_ , she would have listened.

But now was not the time for bitterness. Oh, she’d have words with Asra, alright, but not until she was safely out of the city. She squinted up at the sky, trying to tell the direction of the sun. From what direction had the beast borne her? Had it been the north or the west?

_‘I should never have left Nopal.’_

She should have never left, and right now, it seemed like the wisest course of action was to figure out how to get back, no matter how that wounded her pride. The beast was right; Asra was probably right behind her. Maybe if she left the city and climbed the hill, she could see him coming. His relief to see her unharmed would outweigh his anger, and he’d know what to do next. But that still required her to _leave the city_ , and she was still lost within it.

Voices interrupted her rest, echoing from the street she’d entered the alley from. Immediately, Aredhel stiffened, every muscle of her body locking tight as she flattened herself against the wall. She had not rested long enough; she did not have the energy to recast her glamor. If someone entered the alley, should she keep hiding, or should she run? A hiss came from behind her, then a giggle. Slowly, she dared to peek her head out from behind the rubbish concealing her.

A couple—that’s what she had heard. They were pulling each other close, their mouths locked so tightly Aredhel wasn’t sure how they were breathing. As she watched, a woman pulled her lover back, against the wall behind her; he allowed himself to be led, gliding a wide palm down her thigh, then hitching her knee up around his waist.

Aredhel retreated to her hiding place, weighing her options. She could not afford to be caught here, not without the magic of her glamor hiding her appearance. Then again, the two people further down the alley seemed far too preoccupied with each other to pay her much attention, as long as she was quiet, and did not move. But if that was so, was not the safer thing to sneak out of the alley if she could? They probably wouldn’t even notice her go.

Once more, she risked a glance from behind the trash. By now the woman’s lover had succeeded in lifting her off the ground, holding her between the wall and his body. The sounds of her soft pleasure sounds turned Aredhel’s face red beneath her shawl. Her head was leaning against the wall, eyes closed against the pleasure, and as her companion pressed kisses to her throat, her mouth opened in the perfect shape of an ‘o’ to loose her sigh like an arrow.

Then, she opened her eyes.

Immediately Aredhel pulled her head back into hiding, but it was too late. The woman whispered, but her words echoed down the alley loud enough for Aredhel to hear them:

“Igor, there’s someone watching us.”

Rational thought abandoned her. Should she stay or should she run? But the sounds behind her made the choice impossible: two feet meeting the damp ground, then the heavier step of a man ready to attack.

“Hey! Who’s skulking and oggling back there? Who d’you think you are?”

She was out of the alley before she could remember standing, taking off down the street. No sooner had she got three strides from the mouth of the alley when she heard that same man, shouting behind her:

“Come back here, you pervert! I’ll show you what peepers get on this side of town!”

She highly doubted he was going to do anything of the sort; it seemed more likely he’d immediately realize the value of the bounty on her head,  and make every effort to collect. She could not have that.

Instinct guided her. Her breathing was shallow; each of her steps echoed through the empty streets, followed by the heavier stomp of her pursuer. ‘ _Does he really mean to assault me?’_ she wondered, incredulously, as she turned a corner. _‘Wouldn’t he rather just get back to what he was doing before I interrupted?’_

And that was when she saw it, sitting pretty on the opposite side of the canal like an answered prayer.

Occupying the opposite city block were two massive warehouses, the second looking even more neglected and dilapidated than the first. They were dirty and unkempt, the paint peeling off their facades. Once upon a time a small square must have stretched between them, a place for factory workers or sailors to take breaks on their shifts, but in the centuries since their construction, another squat building had been squeezed between the warehouses, kissing up against their sides so that no space was left between them. It was in slightly better condition than the buildings that flanked it. The ash-grey wood slats that covered its front looked clean and secure, at least, and the shingles on its roof did not appear to be in danger of falling in. Even so, it was a cramped and attractive structure. Four stout windows looked out onto the street, but their panes were so covered with dirt and dust that she could not see past them to the space within. It bore no sign nor letter, but the international symbol for medicine was painted large and high above the door.

Aredhel’s stomach flipped at the sight of it. It was the second most familiar thing she had seen in Vesuvia, after her own face… and it was just as she had dreamt it would be, down to the padlock on the door and the proclamation covering its window, declaring the building condemned.

Footfalls behind her shook her from her wonder; she was still being chased. The building looked just like it did in her dream: maybe that would not be the only familiar thing. She raced to the door. A part of her sounded a vague warning: was this not the setting for her nightmares? Had she not woken from them damp and screaming? Would it really be safe, if the quarantine order still stood on the door, warning against some unspecified sickness?

Still, what choice did she have? If the man from the alley insisted on pursuing her, she could not outrun him, not exhausted as she was. And she still did not have the energy to summon a glamor. If not in this building, where else was she going to hide?

Just as in the dream, her fingers barely brushed the lock before it sprang open. She had always been adept at lockpicking magic, ever since Asra first taught her how. It was a skill he had insisted she learn, same as casting charms or brewing tinctures. In light of the wanted posters on the street, she tried not to reflect too long on that particular insistence.

Hastily, she pocketed the lock, then slipped inside and locked the deadbolt behind her. Then she dropped to her knees, low enough that she could not be seen through the windows, and listened. Outside, she recognized the footsteps of her pursuer grow louder… and then softer, as they receded into the distance. She had succeeded; she had given him the slip.

This time, she did not sigh in relief; she knew now that whatever safety she had found for herself could easily be violated. She should keep her priorities straight, she knew. She would do well to rest in this dark, closed space only as long as she needed to replenish her magic; then, safely glamored, she should _leave_ , and walk until nightfall, if that was how long it would take her to find her way back out of Vesuvia.

But… but she could not stop her head from turning towards the darkness, towards the smells of medicinal herbs and disinfectant. She had come all this way from Nopal only to find herself in this haunted place—that _had_ to mean something. And even if it didn’t, well… she had to wait anyway, didn’t she, to regain her strength?

_‘So what’s the harm, then, in looking around while I wait?’_

Crouched by the door, Aredhel gave her eyes another moment to adjust to the darkness. As they did, the first thing she could make out was the wealth of dust settled over the floorboards, motes stirred up even by movements so faint as the force of her breath. When she rose to her feet, so did the dust, a swirl of grains following her ascent.

The windows were just as filthy as the floor; inside the building, it didn’t look anything like the bright, early morning Aredhel knew it to be. So occluded was the light that Aredhel could not make out the opposite wall, only what lay in between. Near her the light falls on rows of simple wood-frame beds, many of them askew, their sheets untucked.

Curiosity got the better of her. She was not well-rested enough to cast her glamor, but fire magic had always been easier for her than illusions. It was no trouble to call a small flame to her palm, and the light spat, spilled in fits and starts over cabinets that lined the walls between the beds, and gleaming metal trays that sat on table tops or turned-over on the ground. Half the cabinets were open, and from their shelves spilled spare sheets and gowns, clean rags and bars of soap.

The most curious find were the slender metal tools, many of which had been upset from the fallen metal trays and, as a consequence, had scattered and rolled across the floor. The dust that had settled over them somewhat dimmed their shine, but still the metal caught a dull gleam of Aredhel’s fire. The sight of them turned Aredhel’s stomach. They had all different edges: sharp blades and curved wires, tiny scissors.

Asra had taught Aredhel some healing magic; she’d taught herself more from the books they kept in the house, learning how to brew tonics and tinctures to trade in Nopal. But these instruments, though she guessed them to be medical tools, were foreign to her. They seemed to bear a greater resemblance to kitchen instruments than tools of healing.

The wood groaned under foot as she made her way deeper into the clinic. At last her thrown light found the far wall, illuminating two doors: one ajar, one closed, just as in her dream.

Aredhel approached the opened one. Beyond the threshold was a terribly narrow space, lined with shelves that stretched towards the ceiling. A ladder three times her height was mounted to the top and equipped with wheels, so that one might drag it up and down the row of shelves and climb to the uppermost reaches without difficulty. The shelves themselves were lined with jars of dried herbs, flasks full of pickled ingredients, and powders, natural items with magical properties that she instantly recognized. But much of the inventory was decidedly unfamiliar: more knives and metal instruments, navy costumes with bright silver buttons, and a row of large beak-shaped masks with red lenses over the eye holes. The masks in particular aroused a feeling of deep unpleasantness within her. She lingered only a little while, then stepped back into the main room of the clinic.

Then, outside of the second door, she hesitated.

Here she was, less than six feet away from the very door she had dreamt of. Before, she had never really hoped nor planned to find it; now, for the first time, she wondered what was behind it. It must be something important, mustn't it, for her to have dreamt of it? Perhaps it had something to do with the matter of the dead Count; maybe behind this door was an answer she was better off not knowing.

Before she could marshall her courage, the groan of wood froze her. The floor-sound had come from somewhere distant, deep across the darkness she had crossed from the door. Aredhel spun on her heel and lifted her hand. She hardly dared brighten the enchantment too much; after all, this building was supposed to be abandoned, and the last thing she needed was for her magic to be visible on the street, through those impossibly grimy windows, and for someone passing by to take it upon themselves to investigate who was poking around the old condemned clinic.

Of course, that is to say, if someone hadn’t _already_ taken on that responsibility _._

But the light touched nothing, no menacing figures nor ghosts, and nothing moved in the shadows. Aredhel willed her breathing to steady, her heartbeat to slow. It had little effect.

“Strange. And I thought it said quite clearly on the door that this building was not to be entered.”

 _Trouble._ She nearly leapt out of her skin, whipped around instead, lifting her hand and gazing wildly into the darkness. So it hadn’t been in her head—she wasn’t alone. But where was the—

“Behind you.”

She spun—and there they were. They were wearing a navy uniform, and one of those awful masks she had seen in the closet and for a moment, upon seeing this, Aredhel wondered if she hadn’t already contracted some terrible disease, if she would be dead by week’s end, execution or none. But then she pushed the thought from her head, and adjusted her posture into a more stable stance, should it come to blows between her and the stranger.

“Is this your clinic?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” came the reply. Their hands reached out for her, as if to touch her. Aredhel flinched, before she realized they were not making to seize her, but only holding their palms out and up in supplication.

“Look, you’re not in trouble,” they said, their words faintly muffled by the mask they wore. “But you _really_ shouldn’t be in here, even if the city hasn’t seen a case of plague in three years.”

Aredhel hardly listened. In the corner of her eyes she surveyed the room. Her heart pounded in her chest; it felt like her whole body trembled with each beat. And when the stranger told her that she shouldn’t be here, he took a step towards her, and she knew she could not allow him to close the distance between them.

She bolted. Let whatever was behind that door be _damned_ , she had to get out of this city.

The stranger stood between her and the aisle between the rows of beds, but she was nimble, and she could adapt. She leapt atop the nearest bed. The masked stranger lunged for it, their hands fisting in the sheets as if to pull them out from under her feet—but by that time she was gone, leaping from bed to unsteady bed, making her way as fast as she could towards the exit.

“Wait! You can’t just—”

Their exclamation was interrupted by a grunt—Aredhel heard the bed frame creak—they were following her.

“Stop! Please! I don’t want to hurt you, but you have to—”

Aredhel cut them off with a shriek. The stranger had caught up to her; mid-air, between beds, they’d wrapped their arms around her and dragged her downwards. Aredhel closed her eyes, bracing herself, but instead of hitting the mattress she fell onto soft flesh, the hard buttons of the navy uniform digging into her back. A small price to pay for the cushioned fall: she’d fallen atop her attacker and her weight had knocked the wind out of them. In the breath it took them to recover, Aredhel elbowed them swiftly in the face and leapt to her feet, crouching to swipe one of the little funny looking blades off the ground and thrusting it before her, ready to defend herself with it if needed.

Then, though—her hands closed around something like a weapon, and somewhat at an advantage, standing over her assailant, her adrenaline calling her last reserves of magic to her fingers—she turned back to the bed, and found that (in elbowing the stranger) she had done nothing but dislodge his mask, and— _trouble._

She had hoped to break his nose with her elbow… now, looking at him, she realized what a pity it would have been if she had. Oh, sure, she was ready to cut up his face if he came any closer to her, handsome or not (' _Try not to think, Aredhel, about how quickly you’re willing to hurt him, and what that says about what you may-or-may-not have done to the Count.'_ ) but there was something about him that was decidedly arresting. His red hair hid most of his face, but not the black patch that covered his left eye, nor the curve of his nose, nor the twist of his grimace. He was slowly sitting up, bent over and rubbing at the thigh that, she now realized, and made contact with the frame of the bed.

 _Trouble,_ she warned herself, coming to her senses. That's what the doctor in front of her was, and the last thing of use to her now was to note the striking nature of his features.

When he looked up at her, his single grey eye narrowed. He nodded to the blade in her hand. “You’re holding that wrong.”

“I’m sure it will cut just fine like this.”

“Maybe, but not cleanly,” he conceded as he stood, folding his arms tightly over his chest. The flame in her hand licked the high plains of his cheeks; he stared at it apprehensively. “Is that—is that magic? Are you a witch?”

Aredhel did not like his tone. “I am a magician.”

He laughed, leaning against the cabinet behind him. “Oho, I’ve found magician _and_ a thief. The plot thickens.”

“I’m not a _thief_.”

She refuted the accusation with a confidence she did not entirely feel. Printed matter around the city declared her a murderer, and even she did not know if that charge was true or false. Was theft really any less likely? But in any case, though, she hadn’t been stealing _presently_ , not from the clinic in which she’d been found _._

“Then what were you doing in here?” he asked, quirking an eyebrow; he did not believe her. “Some of this equipment is quite valuable, if you know someone willing to pay the price. But trust me, some things are better off left undisturbed...”

The warning was ominous, melodramatic, and while he delivered it, he was looking keenly into her eyes, searching them. The gesture was less romantic than it was clinical.

A change came over him; he leaned closer to her, and Aredhel took a half-step away. The look on his face was intense and bewildered. Aredhel thought it not unlike the look that the citizens in the Town Square gave her when she had momentarily dropped her glamor. It was like he had, for just a moment, been gripped by the most violent and powerful of emotions, but they had passed too quickly for him to take note of them, and left no trace behind. His mouth fell open, and his eyebrows drew together. The corners of his mouth curled up in a half-smile.

“Do I know you?” he asked, his voice equal parts hesitant and excited.

And all Aredhel could think to herself was, ‘ _Does he?_ ’ For all she knew, she very well might have known him in the part of her life she couldn’t remember—the part where she wasn’t yet an alleged murderer. But even if they had been acquainted, that did not mean she could trust him.

“No,” she replied, barely managing to keep her voice even, “I don’t think so.”

His mouth closed, and a warm, inviting smile curved his lips. It was altogether _too_ charming. “I guess not. It’s just that you look, well, _familiar_ , somehow…” He took another step towards her. Her heart began to beat too quickly, too forcefully; she felt it the way you can feel the vibrations of the skin of a drum by putting a flat palm on its body. She raised the knife higher; his grey eye glanced towards it, but seemed utterly unbothered by it; still, he slowed his advance. “I’m relieved to hear it, though,” he continued, that damnable smile still tugging at his mouth. “If I had forgotten a face like yours… it would shame me deeply.”

Aredhel felt her cheeks heat; she prayed it wasn’t noticeable in the inconstant light cast by her flame. She volleyed back, jerking her head towards the bed they had fallen on:

“I’m not sure I believe you have a sense of shame, after the way you nearly tackled me just now.”

His smile widened, stretching ‘til it split his lips and revealed white teeth. “That may be true,” he said, dipping his head in acknowledgement. “But what about you? If you’re not a thief, what are you doing here?”

His demeanor set her at ease, or at least enough that she found herself lowering, if hesitantly, the sharp instrument in her hand.

“I dreamt of this place,” she told him, honestly, gesturing the room around him. “Twice I dreamt of it and then I… I found myself here.” She thought it best to leave out the part about being more or less chased into the building.

“You dreamt of this place? Here, this building?” His weight shifted. He tried to hold her gaze, but his eye turned down to his toes instead and his eyebrows knotted.  “What, uh. What did you dream of? ... _who_ did you—”

“No one,” she was quick to reply. “I was by myself. But I am always headed towards that door,” she said, pointing to the second door in the far wall, “and I always wake up before I open it.”

One grey eye blew wide with surprise. “ _That_ door?”

Then he laughed, and it was a twisted and bitter sound, and very much at odds with his earlier charm.

“So, what? You came here thinking you were going to find something… _profound_ behind it, or something meaningful?” He sneered at the end of the question, but Aredhel got the feeling his derision was directed more at himself than at her.

“Not necessarily profound, but I—”

“I’ll save you the trouble. It’s just an office. My former office, to be exact.” His eye fell back to the ground and his voice turned soft. “Full of all my notes, all my logs, my tests… all my failed efforts. They helped nobody, in the end.” He glanced at her, quizzical. “Why would you be dreaming of it?”

To that question, Aredhel did not have an answer. As she searched for one (any would do, fabricated or truthful) the smile abruptly fell from his face.

“Wait a minute,” he said, a low wonder in his voice. “It’s _you_.”

For a second—for one blissful, fleeting fantasy of a moment—she thought that he knew her. Something warm and almost tender in the way he said it, like he was an old friend, someone once-beloved to her, about to wrap his arms around her, to tell her how he had missed her, that everything was going to be okay.

But then he spoke again, and the spell was broken:

“You’re her. The girl from the posters.”

She was on him in an instant, pinning him to the cabinet with her elbow, the blade poised at his throat. _‘Why, all of a sudden, does violence come so easy to me?’_ She pushed the thought out of her head, and set her mouth in a hard line.

“Do not scream,” she warned. “Do not call for the guards. Don’t say a word.”

He laughed again, but sounded this time genuinely amused. “You _are_ new in town,” he said with a grin. “Even if I did call, the guards wouldn’t come to help me. This isn’t the best protected quarter in the city—and even if it was, the guards have grown even less effective since you’ve left, if you can believe it.”

Then he bit his lip. Deliberately, in a way that was impossible for Aredhel to miss, he turned his eyes down to the sight of her body pressed against his, holding him against the cabinet. His face colored; his voice lowered.

“If I do scream,” he purred, “will you be rougher with me?”

In the bowl of her hips her stomach flipped; she felt that heat returning to her cheeks again. She tried not to show how his words had shaken her but it was too late; already, again, his smile was curving ( _suggestively_ , she thought, and what kind of psycho smiles with a knife to his throat?) into a shape of smug delight.

Shattered at the sound of a fist, crashing on wood:

“ _This is the County Guard. Open up, in the name of the Countess!”_

He cursed, loudly. “You’ve got to be joking. What the hell are they doing in this district? And where is that blasted raven when you need him…”

But Aredhel wasn’t looking at him. Her hold on him had loosened; her eyes were locked on the door. Through the paper pasted over the window, she could see the dim shadow of a figure silhouetted against the light.

“Aredhel. _Aredhel._ Hey, _look_ at me.”

Leather clad hands on her wrists; her eyes turned wide to meet his. “How do you know my name?”

He looked at her like she was from another realm. “Because it’s on your posters?”

“Oh, right—”

“Aredhel, _listen to me_ ,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper, drawing her close. “That door you were making for—my office—there’s a window in the back. It’ll lead you out to the docks. I doubt they’re covering that exit, they probably just think it’s a bunch of hooligans getting rowdy in here. Hurry. And break the pane if you have to—the window sometimes jams.”

Then he had released her, and strode past her, walking towards the door. “Just a minute, Lieutenant!” he called, adjusting his uniform, tucking his waistcoat back into the sash around his waist.

“What are you doing?” Aredhel hissed after him.

“Preparing to hold them off with my wit and charm, of course,” he quipped back, with a mischievous grin. “You won’t be arrested, not in my clinic. Now _go._ ”

That seemed too convenient for her liking; how had she managed to trespass on the property of the one citizen in Vesuvia who would let her get away with it? But she didn’t linger to question her good luck. Instead, she sped towards the office. Apprehension swirled in her gut as she approached the door. Her heart was pounding, she was sweating; she could not tell if this was because she was at last going to pass through the door of her dreams, or because of the imminent threat of arrest and execution. But adrenaline left no room for hesitation, and no sooner had her hand closed around the knob then she was swinging into the back office, slamming the door shut behind her.

There was, indeed, a window in the far wall, and this office was much smaller than the room she’d just entered from, and so the light filled it better. Ahead was a desk cluttered with parchment and journals; on top of them was a single stemmed rose, dessicated and leached of its color.

And Aredhel felt nothing. Her memories did not come rushing back to her. No secrets were revealed to her.

But that could not be right—why would she had dreamt of this place if it didn’t _mean_ anything? Why had she come all this way, put herself in danger, if there was nothing waiting here for her? Her fingers itched to sheaf through the parchment on the desk—but no, she could not stop now, no matter how it pained her. As much as she wanted her answers, she was not going to linger and risk being caught.

Before she could change her mind she rounded the desk, and curled her fingers around the bottom of the window. She shoved. The window barely budged. Behind her, out in the clinic, she could hear the doctor’s voice, jovial and casual. Footsteps on the wood. She shoved again.

The window yielded.

The smell of the ocean was thick in the air. Aredhel wrapped her hands around the ledge and hosited herself out of the window, dropping to the pavement outside. She had just enough energy to cast a hasty glamor, before she sped away.

She ran, and she ran, and she did not stop running until she had crossed through the gates, until she was safely under the cover of trees. There, she fell to the ground, exhausted, and wept.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/3/19- updated with beta PumpkinPillars' suggestions (see announcement in chp. 5)


	3. slide in shadow, cobble-creep

Behind the castle, the sun was westering and turning the sky gold, blush, indigo. It was not yet nightfall, but the last light of the fading sun was not enough for Aredhel to pack by. A small, blue magelight hovered over her shoulder, illuminating the damp earth in front of her, which was strewn with what few possessions she still had to her name after two days in Vesuvia… or, more accurately, on its outskirts, in the marsh where Aredhel had been hiding since she’d fled through the city gates.

The brackish marsh was not an ideal hiding place. There weren’t any trees, which Aredhel would have liked, but in most places the grass and the reeds stood taller than she did, and hid her from unfriendly eyes. On her first night sheltering there, she had looked in vain for a dry place to sleep. By nightfall she had failed, and had laid down where she was, curling into herself on top of the damp, fragrant crushed grass. Unlike the forest west of the city—the one the beast had cautioned her against entering—where she might have found berries and nuts and other wild things to subsist on, the plants and hiding places of the swamp were less known to her. In two days, she had run through her provisions: she had eaten the last crusts of bread, the last of her dried dates from the palms of Nopal.

The marsh did have one important advantage: it ran along the coast of the lagoon, and it was relatively flat, and that made it easy for Aredhel to keep herself oriented. As long as she had the water to her right, or to her left, she knew which direction would take her to the city and which would lead farther from it. Here, she would not get lost. Also, she doubted the guards would come looking for her among the reeds—and two days seemed to have proven her correct. Since she had left Vesuvia, she had not seen a soul.

Including Asra.

A part of her had believed he would just… _find_ her, in that miraculous way he had. He was her Master in magical study, yes, but he was also her best friend. His was the face she had woken to every day, and his was the smile she most cherished. For the last three years, he had always been at her side to protect her, support her, teach her. How could Asra fail to find her now, when she needed him most? Surely, Aredhel thought, he had some trick, some magic. Asra would come and rescue her.

But at the close of the third day she’d spent away from Nopal, Asra was still nowhere to be seen. Aredhel had run out of provisions—she could not wait any longer. She packed her scant possessions into her bag, taking stock of the tools she had for the journey ahead, and she prepared to leave.

It was not simply the lack of food urging her to move on. If she had been determined to stay and wait for Asra, she probably had magic and cleverness enough to catch a fish from the lagoon. But Aredhel had been so certain of Asra’s imminent arrival, and this illusion of rescue had made her feel safe. Confident in her forthcoming deliverance, she had filled her days exploring the marsh around her. She would take her bag with her and set out walking, looking among the reeds for shells washed in with the tide, things that might make good gifts for Asra (he had always been fond of sea shells) and constantly on the lookout for small creatures, kinds she never would have seen in the desert—crabs and seabirds. Though she would have loved to sit at the lagoon’s edge and look out at the water, she tried to stay inland; she did not want any boats to catch sight of her. Sometimes, though, she would find a relatively dry spot—perhaps perched on a bit of driftwood long since washed ashore—and look at the water sparkling beyond the reeds, and the wind would tickle her face, and Aredhel would try to think of some other way to get back her memory without returning to Vesuvia.

That proved very difficult to do without her favorite aids: she had neither books nor Asra with her to spark her creativity. And without research to start with, she had easily become distracted. More often than not, though she sat down at the waterside to think and plan, and though she was not usually inclined towards masochism, she ended up torturing herself instead.

In the city, everything had happened so fast. She hardly had time to breath, never mind process what was happening to her, the things she was learning. But once she had fled to the marsh, while her hours were full of waiting, her mind filled with dark questions, of the sort that had been too big to consider when she had been running for her life.

_‘The Count...what if I really did kill him?’_

Aredhel had recoiled from the possibility as instinctively as a hand flinches from a hot kettle, but she did not feel she could decisively rule out the possibility. She had no memory of her life before the desert, no understanding of the person she had been then. For all she knew, she may very well have been capable of murder.

But that thin answer only led to more questions, each more difficult to bear than the one that preceded it: _‘Is that why Asra hid me away in the desert? Was he afraid I’d be arrested, dragged off for a bounty if he left me alone—is that why he gave me the flute?’_ And then, with burgeoning panic, she would wonder, _‘Does Asra himself even know whether or not I am innocent? Does he care? If finds out I’m not innocent, will he leave me?’_ And sometimes, less urgently, but just as painful because of how bewildered she still was by the whole episode, she asked herself, ‘ _Why did the doctor let me go? His pity—do I even deserve it?’_

During the two days she had waited for Asra, she had tried not to think too much on these things. In that endeavor, she had mostly failed. But by the end of the second day, she had reclaimed her reason, and there were a few things she knew to be true:

Firstly, whether or not she _had_ at some point been capable of murder, Aredhel was sure that she wasn’t any more. She had thought long and hard about this in that spot by the water, sometimes adding some of her own brine to the brackish water below in the form of her tears, but ultimately she had determined that she simply did not have it in her to take the life of another, no matter the circumstances. And as she could not remember anything of her life before the desert, this truth seemed more important—more precious, a truer truth—than whatever had happened in the part of her life to which she no longer belonged. This commitment to her present—to who she _was_ , instead of whoever she _had been_ —made another thing clear: her lost memories were not so dear to her that Aredhel would die for them.

Secondly, following that realization, Aredhel knew that she needed to get out of Vesuvia. The city wasn’t safe for her. Even in the marsh she was at risk; she could not go on hiding in the grass. There was always the chance someone would come out here to trap or to fish. The best thing would be to go back to Nopal, and do her best to forget this whole affair.

However—thirdly—she was pretty damn sure that she could make her way back to the clinic from the city gates, and she was equally confident that she could be there and back in under three hours.

If she was careful, she could hold a glamor for three hours. And if she waited for cover of nightfall, she wouldn’t even have to maintain the glamor the whole time. Perhaps she would find neither her innocence nor her guilt in the heap of papers on the doctor’s desk, but she had _dreamt_ of entering that room, and to Aredhel, that meant something. It would be a manageable risk, she reasoned, to sneak in and out, and take the records out of the city with her. She could pour over them back in Nopal, once she was safe, and the whole adventure was behind her.

Asra had not come, so Aredhel did not stop to consider whether or not he would have approved.

(This, too, she had to contend with, sitting in the marsh, looking at the lagoon: she had never before considered herself a deceitful person. She had never thought herself prone to violence, or acts of clandestine cleverness. But it was like sneaking out of Nopal has been the first stones that heralded an avalanche of unsavory behavior: breaking into the clinic, preparing to return to it and steal from it... threatening the doctor with that knife. Though that, perhaps, she could excuse—he had almost seemed to enjoy it.)

By the time Aredhel passed through Vesuvia’s gates, the sky had gone black. The slenderest curl of the new moon cast its silvery light on the canals and city streets, and the dampness of the cobblestones reflected that light, multiplied it.

Vesuvia during the evening was nothing like Vesuvia during the day. For one, in the darkness, Aredhel felt less exposed—protected by it. Another thing: most of the businesses, other than the taverns and public houses, were now closed, and so those darkened streets were emptier. So safe felt the city under the starlight that Aredhel was tempted to drop her glamor entirely and save her strength, but if her first sojourn into the city center had taught her anything, it had taught her caution, and so she clutched the skin of her illusion tightly to her.

Of course, safe as the night may have been, it had its own drawbacks. The dark gifted her refuge, but it also obscured the landmarks she had been relying upon to make her way back to the clinic. She had thought, even from the gates, she might pick out the distant statues that topped the city center’s astronomical clock, but in the dark she saw no sign of those gilt figures. Aredhel, however, was determined to be resilient, and adaptable, and refused to see this challenge as reason to call off the excursion. She knew the clinic had been near the docks; she made her way into the city, taking avenues that would lead her to the harbor, following the smell of salt and fish.

But the deeper into the city she went, and as the the smell of the sea grew stronger on the wind, the more unsure Aredhel became of her route. When she found herself in the flooded district, her confidence plummeted. She recognized the buildings—she could have sworn she had passed this way two days ago, during her flight from the Town Square—but she had expected to approach it from the opposite direction, and now knew not which way to turn.

She swore, loudly—still protected by her glamor, she did not fear drawing attention to herself. But there was no point in rushing around the city, wasting magic on her glamor when she had no idea where she was going. Sighing in resignation, she stepped into the shadows, and let the illusion fall.

By the arc of the moon, she knew roughly which direction lay east, and west. She took the eastern route, hoping it would bring her to the sea. If she found her way to the docks, she could, probably, make it to the clinic.

...then again, she had been equally confident, while packing her bag and preparing to leave the marsh, that this little adventure would pose no trouble at all.

Aredhel scuffed the soles of her shoes against the cobblestones as she walked. Gods, she really had made a hash of things, hadn’t she? Embarrassment and frustration slowed her as she picked her way between dim alleys, keeping a steady course east. She felt less endangered than ashamed. She’d make it back to Asra eventually, one way or another—even though Asra had yet to find her, Aredhel had unshakeable faith in the inevitability of their reunion—but she would really, _really_ like not to do so empty handed. Those papers in the clinic… maybe there was nothing useful written in them, but at least it would have been something, a success for which she might be able justify her flight from home.

In the alley ahead, folk music drifted from the windows of some tavern. The melody was bright and cheerful, but still it made her wistful, because it reminded her of music she’d heard in Nopal. Homesickness swelled within her. What was she doing here? Wandering the city, risking her freedom and her life, so—what?—she could return home with her pride intact? Yes, that was what this was about—stubbornness, and pride. Perhaps that had been at the root of it from the beginning, all of it—her midnight departure, her insistence on staying, the days spent in the marsh—just some willful rebellion against Asra’s power over her, which Aredhel still resented, although Asra had never abused it.

The moon continued to swing across the sky in its arc, and the city quieted, and when the realization came to Aredhel she knew it was true, no matter how much she may have disliked it:

It was not worth losing her life to assert her independence from Asra, or to prove a point.

Groaning softly in defeat and disappointment, she let her body fall back against the alley wall, and slid to the ground, crouching, her elbows on her knees, her hands covering her head. Aredhel did not like admitting failure, and she was unused to the feeling. When it came to magic, most spells came easy to her—and when they didn’t, she beat her head against the wall until she understood them. But her drive and ambition were not going to be enough to get her the answers she had come to Vesuvia seeking; those assets were barely enough to keep her safe. Though she had a mere three years of life experience in her memory to draw upon, in all that time she could not remember ever feeling so _stupid,_ so embarrassed.

That is, until the alley was flooded with light, and fear out-crowded her shame.

Not just light: music, too, the trilling lilt of some stringed instrument, and laughter. Tobacco smoke and the dizzy scent of ale, and hearty stew, drifting through the opened door. Voices.

Two tall leather boots— _trouble._

“Aredhel?”

 _Her name—!_ She panicked at being recognized, leapt to her feet, but before she could run her mind caught up with her body. This stranger… silhouetted in the light of the door, she couldn’t make out his face—but she knew that voice. And the way her name had been said: curiously, but with welcome. She lifted her face.

“It _is_ you. What are you doing here?”

The doctor stepped out of the doorway, and the harshness of the light was tempered. In the dim spill of golden tavern-light Aredhel could just make out the curve of his nose, the familiar twist of his grin. It was not bright enough to make out his expression, but when he spoke again, his tone was jovial, as though he were speaking to a friend, and not an alleged criminal whose escape he had both aided and abetted.

“Not trying to sneak back into my old clinic, I hope,” he warned, but his words carried more cheer than caution.

Aredhel did not reply. How could she? She was as well acquainted with speechlessness as she was with shame—which is to say, not very well acquainted at all—but she had not expected to see the doctor ever again, and the quickness with which he’d guessed out her intentions unnerved her.

As her silence seemed to unnerve _him._

“You’ve got to be joking,” he hissed. He took a step towards her; Aredhel took one step backwards. He did not seem to notice.  “You were nearly arrested, Aredhel—was once not enough for you? Do you _want_ to be caught?”

She found her tongue. “It’s none of your business,” she told him, less forcefully than she would have liked.

“It’s absolutely my business. It’s _exactly_ my business.”

He sounded angry—but why should he be angry? What was in it for him? Aredhel watched him carefully, defiant, studying the tension in his shoulders, his neck—his long legs.

 _‘If he calls for the guards, I can run,’_ she thought to herself, _‘but I may not be able to outrun him.’_ Just as she was planning to make a break for it, hoping the element of surprise would give her enough of an advantage to shake him, he surprised her.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, the anger now absent from his voice. He crossed his arms over his chest. “If you’re really that desperate to poke around, I’ll take you back to the clinic myself. But let me buy you a drink first.”

She stepped backward once more. “Why?”

“‘ _Why?’”_ the doctor repeated, grinning. Then he shrugged. “You look parched.”

She raised her chin. “Water is cheap in this city.”

Her rejection deflated him, quickly as it came. His shoulders slumped, and his arms slipped loose of each other, and he held his palms out to her.

“Listen, if we’re going to keep running into each other like this, I just thought, well. We should get to know each other a little better. At least.” When she failed to reply right away, he replied, meekly, “Please?”

Her heart was pounding in her chest. Who was this man—this man who knew who she was, ‘the girl from the poster, and yet—who wanted to ‘ _get to know’_ her? Everything about him seemed to warn her away from him. He had no reason to be kind to her, or to help her, and she had no reason to trust him… but that he was offering in such a way that made her want to.

“Why should I trust you?” Aredhel asked. “Maybe you’re just luring me inside to trap me. How do I know I won’t follow you in and find the Countesses’ guards sitting at the bar?”

He laughed, and she instantly hated him for it. The sound of his laugh was bright, unaffected, a loud and ugly guffaw, one of the most hilarious and ridiculous sounds she had ever heard a human being make. This fact registered just about about everywhere within her except for in her heart, where the sound of the doctor’s laugh only made the treacherous organ flutter faster.

 _‘Stop this right now,’_ Aredhel thought to herself, twisting the toe of her boot in the dirt like she was snuffing out a spark. _‘You don’t know the first thing about this person. You’re too smart to let down your guard because of a laugh, you’re in danger the longer you spend in this city–‘_

But, “it’s really not that kind of bar,” the doctor was saying, and the sound of his voice pulled her from her reflection. “Quite the opposite, in fact.”

When that did not assuage her, the amusement in his face softened. “Aredhel. I’m not trying to trick you, I swear,” he said, and she wanted so much to believe the sincerity in his voice. “I saved you from arrest once already, didn’t I? If there’s a tavern in town that’s safe for you to walk into, it’s the Rowdy Raven.”

He took another step towards her; this time, she did not back away.

Her voice dropped to something near a whisper. “I don’t even know your name.”

“Julian,” he said softly. “Call me Julian. And please, come inside with me?”

  
  


Aredhel wasn’t sure, really, what she said to Julian in response. It must have been consent—a surrender to his warm insistence—because the next thing she knew, the door to the alley was closing behind them, and he was guiding her into the tavern.  As she heard the door close, she felt a sudden dread that she’d made a mistake, and that the bar would soon prove to be full of armed soldiers, and her adventure was about to come to a very untimely end.

Then, Julian put his arm around her waist, and all dread—all _thought_ —abandoned her.

His mouth was moving—he was talking about something, gesturing emphatically with his free arm—but Aredhel was not listening to a single word. His arm around her was somehow not possessive, nor rude, just… _welcoming,_ and warm, and Aredhel detested the way she felt her body heat in kind with something slightly more enthusiastic than ‘ _welcome.’_

 _‘You are an absolute fool,’_ she berated herself. _‘Really you deserve to be caught and executed. What are you thinking? Do you really believe this ends with you in the clinic and not in jail, or worse, scattered into the canal in hacked pieces? Oh, Gods, you are a doomed woman. Sorry, Asra, that your mentor ship was wasted on me, and that you’ll never get to say ´I told you so.’’_

So preoccupied was she, fighting the conflicting emotions within her, that she hardly noticed there was not a single man in uniform in the tavern.

“—anyway, the guards don’t come to this area too often. For the most part.”

Mention of the guard anchored her attention back to him. “You said that last time, too.”

Julian winced, and his hold on her waist loosened. “Yeah, well… trust me. If they come skulking around here tonight, we’ll have plenty of warning.”

As he said this, he grinned, released her waist, and pointed to a row of bells hanging along the window.

 _'Because that makes a lot of sense,'_ Aredhel thought to herself. _'What, does he expect the guards to come clambering between the shutters?'_

“Now. What can I get you to drink?”

Julian had guided her to a booth in the back of the tavern. Upon the table was scattered a number of loose parchment pages, and a few drained pint glasses. They were in the center of a dim, cozy space, with a number of wooden tables and booths. All around them the tavern’s patrons played cards, drank, and argued, sometimes in a language Aredhel understood, sometimes in a language she didn’t. No one paid any attention to her. If she was the most notorious villain in Vesuvia, she certainly didn’t feel it.

She turned her gaze to the bar. It was crowded with bottles, none of which had labels and some of which (it looked like from afar) were filled with not only liquid but also a combination of bizarre items, which appeared to be a melange of buttons, geodes, frogs legs, butterfly wings, orchid blooms, and mushrooms. She hadn’t the faintest idea what any of it was. In Nopal, she and Asra had only drank alcohol on a few special occasions, and then it had only been the one thing, and so she knew of only one beverage she enjoyed. None of the bottles on display behind the bar bore any resemblance to it.

Looking at Julian with faint trepidation, she asked him, “Do you think the bartender has any mezcal?”

Julian voiced a low sound of appreciation. “Yes, I think Bart has a bottle of something like that. Let me see what I can do.”

With a wink, he turned to go, but  “Julian,” Aredhel called after him, “won’t I be recognized?”

His eye gleamed silver when he turned to answer her. “Oh, when you’ve been recognized, believe me, you’ll know. It won’t be bad—you won’t be in any danger—but you’ll know.”

 _‘What a cryptic answer,’_ Aredhel thought, but Julian was gone before she could ask him to elucidate. With one more glance around the bar to be sure no one was had noticed her—they hadn’t—Aredhel sat at the table.

Her eyes fell to the papers spread in front of her, scattered haphazardly, with no evident system of organization. Aredhel thought of the cluttered desk in the clinic—in three years, Julian certainly hadn’t gotten any neater.

...Strange, though. Disorganized as the table was, the handwriting on the papers looked neat.

She had snatched a piece of parchment off the table, upending a few empty pint glasses in the process. They had clattering to the floor, attracting attention—the very thing she had been trying to avoid—she didn’t care. Her eyes ran over the writing once, twice, and then a third time, because she wanted to be absolutely certain.

It was a letter that only she herself could have written to Asra, in her own hand, right down to the shape of the loops in the ‘g’s. Aredhel had no memory of writing it, but the bitterness and the grief expressed in the hurried slant of the letters struck at her heart.

As did the intimacy of the letter. She never spoke to anyone as candidly as she spoke to Asra. And though the letter was written so long ago, concerning events that she could no longer remember, Aredhel felt a stab of betrayal, of violation, to have her old correspondance pored over this way.

‘ _You are an absolute fool,’_ Aredhel chastised herself. She had trusted Julian enough to follow him into the tavern; she had warmed to his arm around her waist. Had he been in possession of these when he had found her in the clinic? Did they have something to do with why he had let her go?

“I’m back, and I have good news! Bart has a bottle of decent tequila and it is even _unopened,_ so you’ll know when you drink it that I haven’t had a chance to poison it. You know, since you seem to be so suspicious of me.”

But Aredhel was hardly listening. Her eyes were scanning the rest of the papers on the table, pulling them towards her to confirm in the dim light, and—yes, they were all of them, _all of them_ , in her hand.

At her side, still standing, tequila in hand, Julian had grown very, very still. And Aredhel did not know whether to hit him, to yell at him, or to knock him onto his ass and flee into the night.

She did none of those things; she took a deep breath, but the accusation was evident in her eyes when she looked up at Julian. “This is my handwriting,” she said, laying her palm flat on the table, atop the papers. ( _That letter to Asra!_ She felt as though she sat before him naked, with only her hands to cover herself.) “What are you doing with these?”

Julian shifted uneasily in place. He was carrying two glasses, and a bottle of blue glass just like the kind she’d seen in Nopal, but she no longer felt like drinking.

“Ah. That. I wish you hadn’t seen that.” He said, finally, softly, uncomfortably. “But I can explain,” he added, hastily, setting both bottle and glasses on top of the papers and throwing himself into the booth opposite her, which left his hands free, then, to gesticulate vaguely. He did so, wordlessly, proving he could _not_ in fact explain, before folding his hands on the table in front of him and slumping his shoulders in defeat.

Finally, he managed, “Two days ago, the Countess woke up.”

That seemed to have little to do with the matter of her letters, but Aredhel could not help but note the strangeness of the statement. Sharply, she asked, “What do you mean, she _woke up?”_

Julian explained. “Since her husband died, she’s had a sickness—she’s been in a kind of sleep. Her servants and nurses had made her as comfortable as they could, of course, but in three years, she never woke. When she did, two days ago… I was brought to the castle to check on her, to make sure she was in good health.”

 _Trouble._ Trouble, he was trouble, and Aredhel was a fool; she should be running, she knew, and not sitting pretty and letting Julian pour her a glass. He filled them and gestured to them both, presumably so she might make her choice and thus be satisfied that he hadn’t slipped something in one of the cups. She reached for a glass, swirled the golden liquid within it without looking at Julian.

“Is she alright? The Countess.”

“As far as I can tell, yes. It is as though she has woken from a deep and restful sleep, as though nothing unusual had happened to her for all these years.”

Julian held his cup between his hands, running his gloved thumbs around the rim of the vessel, staring into the liquid. He had not touched it. When he spoke again, his tone was soft, and tender enough for Aredhel to resent it.

“Aredhel, she wants to see you hang by the Count’s birthday. That’s why they put up all the fresh posters.”

“Oh.” His words sunk through her like a stone. Aredhel had known, of course, that the guards would be looking for her. But she had thought—naively, perhaps—that, if caught, she would be questioned, first… that she might have a case to prove her innocence. Julian made it seem very much like her guilt had already been decided. She hardly dared ask, “And when might that be? ...Specifically?”

Julian tugged at his bottom lip with his teeth. She could feel his eyes on her; he had not stopped looking at her since he had sat down. His fingers still fussed along the rim of the glass. “It’s about two weeks from now,” he said. “She plans to celebrate the same way Count Lucio used to—with a big party. The whole city will be invited.”

“To see me hang,” Aredhel nearly laughed, half-bitter, half-incredulous, “and have a party afterwards?” A grimace played about her lips, and her stomach turned, and she looked into her liquor desperate for the bravery it would bring her (or perhaps, not bravery, but apathy, at least) and yet she could not bring herself to drink. Her throat suddenly felt very thick. The words squeezed out of her, hoarse and dispirited: “Is the Countess certain I deserve such punishment?”

“Actually, Aredhel, it sounded like she had no evidence at all. Which brings us back to the papers,” Julian replied, fanning his fingers over the papers on the table. The tone of his voice had changed; it was determined, rational, confident. “Whatever you think of the Countess, Aredhel, she’s not like the late Count—she’s from Prakra. They do things differently there. She asked me to take these papers and look through them, to see if I could find any evidence of your treachery. And although she did not ask me, I’m also looking to see if there is anything here that might exculpate you.”

“Why did she ask you to look?”

“Ostensibly? Because they’re medical texts, and I am—or more accurately, _was—_ a doctor. But for the life of me I can’t make heads or tails of them.”

“Medical texts?” Aredhel repeated, her brow knitting in confusion. She had given the documents no more than a cursory glance—enough to confirm, after the letter to Asra, that the writing was hers—and she had not noted their contents. She reached cross the table and took a sheaf of parchment from Julian, her suspicion now lost to her curiosity.

After all, wasn't this (in a manner) exactly what she’d hoped to find back at the clinic? Some link, some anchor to her past life. And now she had in front of her a wealth of documents, written in her own hand, from a time she could not remember.

The pages were covered in notes, and dated logs, and diagrams. Many of the documents were just columns of numbers without headings, meaningless to her. Some of them had drawings on them—intricate sigils and energy diagrams—but to her eyes, that looked less like medicine and more like magic of the advanced magnitude, the kind she’d need a couple of Asra’s old tomes to unravel.

“Where did she get all this? The Countess,” she asked, raising the tequila to her mouth for the first time.

“From your desk. In the palace.”

Was it the taste of the liquor that made her head spin, or that answer? “When was I in the palace?” she asked, before she could consider the wisdom of such a question.

Her mistake was evident to her when her query was met only with silence. when She looked up from sigil she was examining over to find Julian looking at her, his grey eye narrowed, expression inscrutable.

“What?” she repeated.

“You don’t remember?” Julian asked, skeptical. “You were studying at the palace, working to cure the same plague that I was treating in my clinic.”

“Oh,” Aredhel replied—realizing, at once, that she had never confided her strange amnesia to Julian, and deciding on the spot she would prefer to keep it that way—then rewarded Julian’s skepticism, and lied: “You know, I spent so much of my time in that library. It’s easy to forget I was in a palace at all. Mostly I just remember being surrounded by so many books.”

He didn’t buy it, but what he thought of the failed deception, he never got to say; beyond her shoulder something caught his eye, and it widened and sparkled in amusement as he smiled.

“Ah. Here we go.”

Aredhel quickly turned to see what he was looking at, but there were no guards or menacing figures looming behind her, ready to cart her off to the hangman’s noose. Instead, the bartender was making his way towards them, carrying a tray of foaming ales and fizzing drinks. She thought perhaps Julian had ordered another drink for himself, but when he came up to their table, the bartender set the full tray in front of them.

They had barely finished their first drinks, and the bottle of tequila was still mostly full. “You ordered _more?_ ” Aredhel asked, stunned. “There’s enough liquor here to peel paint.”

“Me? No, though I must confess that would not be out of character. These drinks, however, are from your admirers.” Julian smiled beatifically up at the bartender. “Who should we thank, Bart?”

Bart grunted. “A pair from Volodya and Marya, and the rest from the back table,” he said, nodding to a large circular booth on the opposite side of the room.

Aredhel craned her neck to look at them. A jolt of surprise went through her when she found the whole table staring—not at Julian, but at _her_. As she watched, a svelte blond with sharp cheeks and bright eyes caught her gaze. One of his companions leaned over to elbow him in the ribs and said something Aredhel couldn’t make out, but even though she could not understand the words she knew the tone: teasing. The blond smiled sheepishly, colored, then raised his glass to Aredhel and drained it in a single swig.

She fought a strong urge to glamor herself and run.

“Told you so.”

Julian’s purr pulled her back into her body. He was smiling around the rim of a glass Bart had brought, foam catching on his upper lip as his grey eye watched her with undisguised delight.

“Told me what?”

Julian set the glass down, licking the ale foam from his lips. “That you would be recognized eventually, but that it would be safe for you. You’re famous—rather than _in_ famous—with this crowd.”

At first Aredhel did not quite understand. But then his earlier words came back to her: _‘These drinks are from your admirers.’_

“Did they send me these drinks because they think I’m a _murderer?”_

“Well, more specifically, it’s because they think you’re an assassin,” Julian said, dryly, crossing his arms and shrugging casually. “Lucio wasn’t very popular on this side of town. He used his political power only to throw parties and keep himself at the center of attention. He wanted all the praise—all the pomp and circumstance—but didn’t want to do the work to deserve it.”

Aredhel could hardly look at him. She had taken a hearty swig of tequila and the liquor—a rare indulgence for her—was going to her head. She watched the stickiness drip down the sides of the glass, trying to wrap her head around what was happening to her. Two days she had spent in the marsh trying to tell herself she had not killed a man, that the whole affair was something to put behind her, and yet… and yet here she was being celebrated for it, and she did not know what to make of that, whether to be reassured or revolted.

Julian’s hand reached across the table and covered hers. The leather of his gloves was soft, and warm, and he brushed her fingers gently. Aredhel met his gaze, and found a depth of compassion in it that quieted her.

“His neglect fell hard on people who had little to begin with, especially around here,” he told her, softly. “Which is to say, I think many of them would not have hesitated to kill the Count, if they had the chance. He was the cause of a lot of suffering.” He added, more quietly still, “Honestly, if you did it, there’s an argument to be made that you did the city a service.”

Those last words had Aredhel straightening, pulling her hands from his. “ _If_ I did it?”

“Well,” Julian said, slowly, watching her with interest, “did you?”

Such a simple question—a simple question to which Aredhel was utterly incapable of giving a satisfying answer. She had thrown herself against it like the lagoon threw itself up on the marsh and that had made no difference. What was she to tell him? The longer the moment stretched in silence, the greater her panic grew. She did not trust Julian with the truth, and even if she did, she did not think he would believe her.

Just then, she heard the ring of bells behind her, and the tavern was thrown into an uproar.

Julian cursed—Aredhel barely heard it over the clamor of bells and shouts, chairs scraping back from tables, something that sounded oddly like a bird call—and leapt to his feet. He hastily collected the parchment on the table, bundling it into a tight sheaf.

Aredhel had turned to watch the chaos. Everyone was scrambling—the ‘admirer’ who had sent over the drinks included—grabbing their belongings and hurrying for the door. The sound of bells had sent them all into this furor. Aredhel sought the string that Julian had pointed out to her earlier, and found it leaping in the beak of a raven, iridescent in the dim light, beating its wings and tugging frantically at the bells.

“Come on, Aredhel, look lively.” A hand—Julian’s, presumably?—fell to her shoulder and guided her, gently but firmly, away from their booth. “Let’s make tracks.”

“What’s going on?”

“The palace guard is in the neighborhood,” Julian replied, steering her between the rows of tables back towards the alleyway “Malak always makes a racket when they’re coming so there’s time to clear out. Now come on.”

Numbly, Aredhel followed him, half-guided, half-dragged out of the tavern. It seemed she had no space left in her for fear—and she _should_ be afraid, she knew that now. If the guards caught her, it seemed likely she’d hang, regardless of what Julian had said of Prakra and their customs. But she was still thinking of the interest she’d drawn in the tavern, and the cleverness of the bird who had warned them, and wondering how such a system had even come to be in place, and whether that said more about the establishment that Julian was rushing her out of or the city guards themselves. She couldn't say. It seemed the more she learned about Vesuvia the less she felt she knew.

Outside the night had cooled, but Aredhel barely had the chance to appreciate it before Julian’s gloved hand was closing over hers, leading her out of the alley. Wordlessly, she followed him. They broke into a run.

Julian led her—and Aredhel felt that she shouldn’t let him, lead her _or_ hold her hand, but she allowed him both, anyway. He had saved her once, true, but that did not make him virtuous: there were many other ways in which he could betray her. Still she felt she had no good reason to trust him; there was something about his eagerness to help her that she, cynically, still found to be off-putting. If he was feeling charitable surely there were better ways to invest his time and energy, people more worthy of his help—and the question of charity was very much that, a question, since (despite, apparently, allegedly, as told by Julian, being trusted by the palace enough to provide medical care to the Countess) he was familiar with people who had bought her drinks when they had recognized her as an alleged assassin.

No, she had no reason to trust him. But his grey eye was warm and kind, and she did not know her way around the city, and Asra had always told her to trust herself—and she desperately wanted to trust this doctor. Despite reason.

She could not do so blindly, however. When they came to a major, well-lit intersection of roads, Julian slowed, craning his neck around the side of the building to check that the way was clear. “Where are we going?” she asked, making sure to stay out of sight.

“Someplace safe,” was all he replied, before taking her hand and leading her off again.

 _‘Like the tavern was supposed to be ‘safe?’’_ Aredhel found herself thinking, but still she curled her fingers tightly around Julian’s, and let him sheperd her into the darkness.

When she had fled from the clinic out to the city gates, she had felt—perhaps mistakenly—that she could have retraced her steps, if needed. But come morning, Aredhel would be hopelessly incapable of tracing the route Julian took. He made abrupt and frequent changes of direction, and the night had grown cloudy, so that she no longer had the stars to guide her—she could not even say, from minute to minute, in which direction they were running. Julian guided her with the prowess of a native. They travelled not so much along streets and bridges as alleys and gutters, tight, dark spaces that were easily overlooked. Aredhel could not tell if she heard people running behind them, or if she heard only their own footfalls, echoing off the architecture as they ran. She did not dare to look behind her.

Soon he had led her to a part of the city that was completely unfamiliar. By then, her energy was flagging. She had eaten less since she’d left Nopal, her provisions stretched thin by necessity, and the magic she’d used earlier for her glamor had tired her long before their flight from the tavern.

Julian pulled her into another alley. It was tighter than many of the others, not quite wide enough for her to stretch her arms out at each side of her without touching stone. It was also cluttered with refuse, which Julian led her over, deftly but quickly, pulling her deeper into the alley. Then, he pressed her into the shadows, holding her close to the wall, where they were easy to overlook.

He held her so closely that Aredhel could feel the curved buttons of his uniform press against her as they breathed, hard and heavy from running. Again she felt that treacherous heat in her gut, but when she looked up at Julian, she saw only the dark of his eyepatch, looking like a hollow in his skull in the dim of night. His head was turned to the side, peering back out onto the street from which they had come. His mouth was drawn tight; he breathed through his nose. He held her, but he held her tensely.

It took her a moment, because she had never seen him wear this particular expression before, but at last Aredhel realized: Julian was afraid.

“If they catch you helping me,” she whispered, “they’ll hang you, too.”

Julian turned to look at her so quickly his curls bounced with the motion, his eye wide with surprise, mouth agape. He recovered quickly, though, forcing a grin. “Well, then, we’d better not get caught,” he said, and pressed closer to her, the folds of his overcoat falling around her like curtains, and he quieted.

It was warm in the shelter of his coat. The sounds of their ragged breathing seemed unnaturally loud. Aredhel tried her best to rest her lungs, to catch her breath; she did not know how long they would pause before Julian would lead her off again. From the street came the sounds of metal on metal, the clang of armor, a jogging guard—Aredhel did not dare peek out of Julian’s coat, closing her eyes instead, reaching for her magic.

If they were caught, she was not going to allow herself to be carted off without a fight.

But then the fearful guard-sounds faded—they had passed the mouth of the alley without stopping. Julian’s fingers curled around her chin, lifting it to look him in the face.

“We’re close to someplace we can lie low for a bit,” he said, quickly, quietly. “Can you still run?”

With a flush of embarrassment that she prayed the night veiled, Aredhel realized they had come into this alley so that she might rest, recover—that this was why they had dallied. Julian had been holding her hand, guiding her… he must have felt her weakening, lagging behind him.

But she was not going to let the weakness in her legs stop her now. She did not know if she could trust him, but she did not recognize the buildings around her, and she no longer had much of a choice.

“I think so,” she said, though she thought no such thing. Adrenaline, however, had been known to pull greater miracles out of her than the capacity to run a few city blocks, and in any case, she wanted to try. The urgency in Julian’s voice frightened her, and she did not want to risk waiting here any longer, in case the guards doubled back.

Julian nodded, then took her hand, and dashed out the opposite end of the alley, doubling back in the direction from which the guards had come.

Now, they ran at breakneck speed, and in the open. Every step was like fire, in her lungs as much as her legs. Aredhel considered herself strong—she used to compete with Asra to see who could carry the larger load back home from the marketplaces in Nopal—but she was unused to running, and especially unused to running when her breath was already short from panic. She kept at Julian’s brutal pace, and she did not ask him to slow, even when she began to worry her legs were simply going to collapse beneath her.

At last, when she felt she could go on no longer, Julian came to an abrupt stop, and pulled her out of the street.

“Quick, through the window.”

They were standing in the yard of a small home. A pair of chickens were roosting in the corner under the broad leaf of a pumpkin vine; around them, various herbs and vegetables sprung out of the ground, clustered together. But that was all she saw before Julian—without asking, she noted mentally, and tersely—lifted her bodily over a window box of yellow blossoms, gently set her inside, feet-first.

But she was so startled (and out of breath, and exhausted) that his gentleness did her little good; she fell through the window with the all the grace of a just-born fawn, a mess of limbs, failing to adjust themselves before her rump met the floor.

The first thing she noticed was the sound of bells. Above her, a colored yarn of chimes just like the ones at the tavern lined the window frame, with plenty of slack so that a certain raven (Aredhel suspected) would have plenty of give to ring them if needed. That was reassuring. However ‘safe’ this new location may or may not be, at least she might expect some warning of the guards came looking for her.

Someone else, however, was looking _at_ her.

Aredhel felt their gaze before she met it. She had found herself in a kitchen, she realized, well-lit by a hearth on the opposite side of the room. In front of the fire stood a figure, wrapped in a thick shawl, a blue scarf tied around their wide face. They were looking at Aredhel sternly, their hands on their hips… but one of those hands was clenching a rolling pin with a menace that suggested the stranger in front of her could use that rolling pin to great effect—as a culinary tool and a weapon both.

Julian came vaulting through the window above her, legs-first; thankfully, the bells announced him, and left Aredhel with just enough time to roll out of the way before she got stepped on.

“Sorry about that, Aredhel,” Julian set, bending to clasp her arm between his and hauling her to her feet. His hands came to her shoulders, brushing the dirt and the dust of their flight through the city from her clothes. “It’s just that the door sticks, sometimes, and the frame is very low—”

“Julian,” Aredhel cut him off, “we aren’t alone.”

This news failed to alarm him. He turned, saw the figure by the fire, and his face broke out into a wide grin.

“Mazelinka!” he cried. “And here I was, thinking you would be out, and we would be deprived of your company. You look as lovely as ever.”

He swooned across the room to Mazelinka’s side, and bent at the waist to kiss her on the cheek. She presented it to him grudgingly, but she kept her gaze glued to Aredhel. It was withering. Aredhel felt she was being measured, somehow—that the woman was waiting for something, some demonstration of wit, or tact, or use—before she realized that, probably, having heard Julian call her name and having seen her face, it was only that Mazelinka knew exactly and was deciding what to do with her. Probably she was tempted to throw Aredhel back onto the street from whence she came (for which, really, Aredhel couldn’t blame her) and that suspicion seemed to be confirmed when Mazelinka spoke, gravelly and chastising:

“Getting in trouble again, are you, Ilya?”

“Trouble? Me?” Julian replied; though his back was towards her, Aredhel could practically picture the devilish grin on his face when he said, “ _Never_. You wound me, Mazelinka.”  
  
Mazelinka harrumphed, then lightly bat at Julian’s leg with her rolling pin. “Lying to your _babushka—_ Lilinka taught you better than that.” Then she swung the rolling pin in Aredhel’s direction. “ _That_ is trouble, Ilyushka.”

As much as Aredhel wished to contest the charge—already she found her mouth opening to argue—she realized that trying to do so would be laughable. The look of fear on Julian’s face in the alley... Mazelinka was right. She _was_ trouble. All matters of trust aside, and regardless of Julian’s motivations for helping her, he was putting himself at great risk to do so.

He flashed Aredhel an apologetic look, as though Mazelinka had said something terribly rude and not the simple truth of the matter. “Aredhel needs my help, Mazelinka,” he said, turning back to the older woman.  “But I’m sorry for barging in on you. I meant to take her to my place, but the guards cut us off—we’ll be out of your hair in an hour or so, once things die down.”

“Nonsense,” Mazelinka said, stirring the pot that hung over the fire. “It’s already late—you will spend the night here.” Then she added, with a defeated sigh, “Really, Ilyushka, I should thank the _devotchka._ When was the last time you came to visit? Even Pasha makes it for dinner on shabbos more often than you, and she has to come all the way from that ivory tower up on the hill.”

Julian’s face fell; his posture slumped. He leaned against the hearth’s mantle, looking at neither Aredhel nor Mazelinka, folding his arms and staring at the ground.

“I know, Mazelinka,” he said, his voice small and ashamed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t meant to be gone so long.  I’ve just been—”

“—very busy, I know,” Mazelinka said, in chorus with Julian. “Running yourself ragged, taking on more than your fair share of responsibility and then asking for more….” She turned to him and raised a hand to pat him fondly on the cheek, tenderly.

(And in that moment—which, Aredhel acknowledged, had nothing to do with her—she could not help but think about herself, and her own parents, whoever and wherever they were. She watched the tenderness pass between Mazelinka and Julian with longing.)

Mazelinka shook her head in resignation, then looked to her guest. “Make yourself comfortable, Aredhel,” she said, nodding to a set of chairs in front of a round kitchen table. “I’ll be back in a moment. Just need some herbs from the garden.”

Her voice had been friendly, hospitable. But as she walked past Aredhel on her way to the yard, Aredhel noticed she was shaking her head, her face drawn tight with worry. Worry, Aredhel was sure, for Julian, whom she clearly cared for, loved… Julian, who Aredhel was putting at risk.

Safe, for the moment, her adrenaline abandoned her, and she was hit with guilt and exhaustion in equal force. She dropped into one of the kitchen chairs, and her guilt and her regret reached for her, beckoned to her. _‘I should not have left Nopal; I should not have come back into the city; I should not have let him buy me that drink—’_

“Are you alright?” Julian’s voice was soft, too kind, more kind than she deserved. He had crossed the room and dropped into the chair opposite. His hands were folded tightly together on the table, as if he were resisting the urge to reach for her. “You don’t look well.”

She didn’t feel well, either. But that was not really a physical malady, she suspected, and anyway, there was little that Julian could do about it. He had already done enough—too much. “I’ll be fine,” she told him. “I think I just need some rest. That was… more excitement than I’m used to.”

“Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?” His voice was eager; he was practically leaning over the table, searching her face for any hint of what might bring her relief. “I’m sure Mazelinka has some _zakuski_ around here if you’re hungry—”

“Julian, I’m _fine_ ,” she said, more insistently, though she couldn’t help but smile at his determination. She doubted he’d give up, though, unless she distracted him; she changed the subject.

“How did you and Mazelinka meet?”

Julian grinned, settling back into his seat. “Oh, that’s a long story. I’ve known her since I was a kid, but she didn’t live in Vesuvia then. Neither did I, for that matter.” But then his grin faltered, and his eye fell to the tabletop, and his voice quieted.

“The truth is, I’d probably be long dead, or worse, without her,” he said, tracing the grains in the table with his finger tip. “She, uh… well, let’s just say there was a time when I was not terribly good at looking after myself, and she was there for me. I am, really, the worst kind of ungrateful wretch for not visiting her more often.”

“I can tell she cares about you a lot.”

“She does. And she can be a bit protective of me, which is probably why you didn’t receive the warmest of welcomes,” Julian said.

“Oh? Not because I’m an alleged murderer?”

Julian laughed. “Well, maybe that doesn’t help. But I doubt she holds it against you. She wasn’t exactly a big fan of Count Lucio’s, either.”

Julian realized his mistake almost after he said it; the mood in the kitchen shifted, like all the air had left it. The momentary distraction conversation had provided was dashed; again, Aredhel felt her guilt, her shame, her conscience clawing at her.

She wished she was brave, or strong enough, to leave. To get back on her feet, to exit the city, to leave both Julian and Mazelinka behind where they wouldn’t get caught up in whatever mess she had landed herself in. Her eyes darted to the bells hanging in the window; trustworthy or not, she knew her presence in Mazelinka’s home put both her and Julian in danger.

(Wasn’t that how trust worked, though? Or how it was supposed to work? She had spent the last three years with Asra, and Asra had been such a good judge of character. She had trusted Asra, and that had been enough. This time, though, Asra wasn’t here, and Aredhel had to decide for herself. Julian had told her that she could trust him; he had stuck his neck out for her. Perhaps she did not owe Julian her trust. But at the very least, maybe, she owed him some honesty.)

Aredhel looked to the door. A window beside it looked out on the garden; she could still see Mazelinka weaving between the plants in her garden. For a little while longer, they would be left alone. She turned back to Julian.

“Before. What you asked me, in the tavern, about whether or not I killed the Count—”

“Oh,” Julian said, cutting her off. “Aredhel, I shouldn’t have—”

“I don’t know,” she interrupted, “if I killed him or not. Honestly, I didn’t even know I was being accused of it before I came to town a few days ago.”

“Oh.”

Aredhel was not sure that she was brave enough to look at Julian’s face—but she was, just barely. His grey eye measured her strangely—not cruelly, not skeptically—just curiously, the way one might look at a small, charming, overly intricate machine whose purpose was not yet apparent. But he had stopped tracing the woodgrains on the table. He had gone still, which was almost as unnerving as his silence; he was utterly opaque to her. She hadn’t a clue what he was thinking.

“It’s okay if you don’t believe me, I know what it sounds like,” she said, the words hurrying out of her. “But I’m telling the truth. I can’t remember anything that happened to me more than three years ago, that’s why I have no memory of the palace, or all those _notes_ —”

Julian’s gloved hand covered hers, and Aredhel quieted. (How often had he reached for her already that night? Often enough for the softness of the leather to be familiar—almost comforting.)

“I believe you.”

Landslide of a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding—her shoulders slumped, and her hand softened beneath his, fingers unclenched. It shouldn’t have meant so much as it did—shouldn’t have meant _anything_ (what did his faith really mean, in the grand scheme of things?)—but it calmed her, unburdened her. “Thank you.”

“No need,” Julian said, with a smile. “I may not be a doctor anymore, Aredhel, but I still consider myself a man of science, above all else. And right now, the facts don’t add up—although I admit, I don’t have a lot of facts, yet. But we’ll get more.” He added, his smile twisting mischievous, “And for what it’s worth, whatever you do or don’t remember, I thought you were innocent almost as soon as I realized who you were.”

“Oh really?” Aredhel asked. “And why is that?”

“Your hand,” he replied. He slipped his hand beneath hers and lifted it from the table, stroking the length of her fingers with his thumb. “It trembled, when tried to threaten me with that scalpel. And if you couldn’t even do that, I don’t think you’re capable of murder.”

His thumb was still caressing her. She had the terrible (heart-thundering) premonition that he was going to lift her hand to his mouth. She did not have the will to stop him—she did not know if she wanted to stop him. “‘Tried?’” she repeated, lamely, lifting an eyebrow as though the gesture might conceal the fluttering of her pulse.

The corner of his eye was crinkling with amusement. “Well, let’s just say it takes a lot more than that to ruffle my feathers.” The volume and timber of his voice lowered, as did his chin, dipping—

The door to the yard opened; without thinking, Aredhel pulled her hand from Julian’s and folded both of hers tightly in her lap. But Mazelinka hardly looked at them. Aredhel could smell dill as she passed, Mazelinka’s fingers working nimbly to pluck the fronds from the stems before tossing them into the pot over the fire.

“You two look half-dead,” she told them as she stirred. “It is late; you should sleep. I am sure you have plenty planned for tomorrow.”

As soon as sleep was mentioned, Aredhel realized how badly she needed it. She hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep in the marsh, and she was still tired from all the running. What tomorrow would bring, she couldn’t say, too exhausted to even think what she might hope for in a new day. But to sleep, somewhere dry, under a roof—that sounded blissful.

At the fire, Mazelinka turned. “Aredhel, I trust you’ll be sharing the bed?” she asked, nodding towards Julian. “Unless you’d rather sleep in the hiding hole? And I’ll cozy in with him.”

It took her a minute to understand what Mazelinka was asking, but as soon as she did, Aredhel felt her cheeks color. Maybe Mazelinka had seen them holding hands after all. She kept her eyes trained on Mazelinka’s, unwilling to look Julian in the face.

 _‘It isn’t a big deal,’_ she told herself, forcefully. _‘You share a bed with Asra every night.’_

But Asra never looked at her the way Julian had, or the way she thought Julian had, sometimes, in certain lights—with her hand poised inches from his mouth. Her skin was still thrilling to the touch that she had long since withdrawn from, and that was too much, a layer of complexity that she did not want to contend with in addition to the questions of her guilt, her lost past. And, she further reasoned, that would not be very accommodating of her: Mazelinka had welcomed them into her home when she needn’t have, and Aredhel did not want to put her out. _And_ , all things considered, everyone would be safer if Aredhel slept in the hiding place, where she was less likely to be discovered.

“I’ll sleep in the hole.”

“Suit yourself,” Mazelinka said, and Aredhel could have sworn she caught the faintest trace of amusement on her face. “It’s a nice hole. Cozy. You’ll like it.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Aredhel noticed, or thought she noticed, and then immediately decided that she had been mistaken, or rather decided to pretend as forcefully as she could, even to herself, that she had _not at all_ noticed the crestfallen look of disappointment on Julian’s face. _Trouble._

For her sake, he was in enough danger as it was. It would be unkind, Aredhel told herself, to take his help and his heart both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/3/19- updated with suggestions by my beta PumpkinPillars (see announcement in chp. 5)


	4. in a reckless guilty haze

Door-sound, not marsh-sound, woke Aredhel; she found herself someplace too dark and too small, and she panicked. She smacked her forehead soundly on the underside of the hiding hole before she remembered where she was, and how she had come to be there.

Settling back into the nest of blankets and pillows, she rubbed the ache in her forehead, using just the slightest pinch of magic to make sure her brow did not bruise. With wakefulness came the memories of the night before: the squashed yellow flowers in the windowsill, Julian’s gloved hand covering hers as he told her, _‘I believe you,’_ and Mazelinka leading her to the secret cavity below the floorboards. The hiding place had proved snug, warm, and superior in every way to sleeping in the marsh. With her body so spent from running, Aredhel had not slept so well since before she left Nopal; here, she’d slept like the dead.

Now, though... well, now that she was awake and she had remembered where she was, she did not think she was going to be capable of getting back to sleep.

In the dark, with nothing to look at, her mind was louder; her guilt was louder. Last night the palace guard had been searching this district—she should consider it a small miracle that she had passed the night without being discovered. If she had been found, if Julian and Mazelinka had been caught hiding her… the thought alone twisted Aredhel’s stomach in knots. She did not know these people, and she did not necessarily trust them, still (even if she had been truthful with Julian) but she was in their debt all the same.

By staying here for the night, she had put them at risk; she should repay her debt by sneaking away, before she put either of them in greater danger than she already had.

Gradually her eyes adjusted to the weak light slipping through the cracks in the floorboards, and by this faint illumination, she felt for her bag, making sure that nothing had slipped out of it in the night. When her inventory was complete, she lay her palm flat against the covering above her, and pushed. Carefully, carefully—she opened the door slowly enough that she was nearly soundless. The wood did not groan and the hinge did not creak. Once she was out, she eased it back to the ground just as quietly. She pulled her shoes onto her feet. Then, she listened.

Aredhel had heard the door close—awoken to the sound of someone leaving. But the house was not empty. Near the bedroom curtain, she recognized the sound and rhythm of Julian’s breathing. It must have been Mazelinka who had left.

 _‘It is too soon to know what his breathing sounds like,’_ she thought, scolding herself. _‘You should be putting as much effort into figuring out how to get back to Nopal as you do paying attention to him.’_

Her stomach wrenched a second time as she realized that what she was about to do would wound him.

But _‘get over yourself,’_ Aredhel thought, and turned from the curtain. Better for him to be bitter with her for leaving him, than for him to be dead. Julian had said all he wanted was to help her—and he had. Thanks to Mazelinka’s hospitality, Aredhel was better rested than she’d been in days; she could hold a glamor and make it back to the gates. Soon, she would be on her way home. She would be safe. If she remembered Julian—if she ever thought of him—she would do so fondly, and with gratitude.

...a pity, though, to leave empty-handed.

Aredhel scanned Mazelinka’s home, but she could not find Julian’s coat. She frowned, glancing back at the curtain. Probably it was in the bedroom, with his other personal effects. Aredhel weighed the risk of pulling back the curtain, and trying to recover the documents Julian had shown her in the Rowdy Raven. In the tavern, she had nothing, but back in Nopal she could look more closely at those sigils. At her leisure she could study them, with the aid of scrolls and grimoires collected in the adobe.

Her fingers itched. She weighed the risks. How heavy a sleeper was Julian? Could she get to his coat without waking him? What if she cast a charm?

...no, no, it wasn’t worth it. If she did disturb him, if Julian saw her going—if he looked at her and took her hand again and asked her to stay—

“N-No— please—”

_‘How did he know I was leaving?’_

A loud bang came from the alcove behind the curtain. Without thinking, without hesitation, Aredhel crossed the room and threw the fabric back, body coiled, tense—but she found only Julian. He was splayed on the floor, twisted in the sheets, face pale. Still, he managed to smile at her when he saw her in the doorway.

“Sorry, Aredhel,” he said, and the hoarse tone that sleep had loaned his voice did not entirely conceal the uneven pitch of fear in hiding within it. “Did I wake you? I didn’t mean to—“

But then he took her in—the shoes on her feet, her bag slung over her shoulder—and his face fell.

“Were you… are you leaving?”

He already looked so pitiful, so unwell—Aredhel would not upset him further. “If I was leaving,” she said, bending to help him off the floor, “then I’d already be gone. Come on, up you go.”

His body was rigid as she hoisted him off the ground. Tangled as he was, limbs caught, he floundered when she first tried to lift him, and nearly fell back onto the floor. But she held him fast, and in her arms he was tight, cold, sweating—trembling. His vulnerability bewildered and bewitched her. Last night, he had been possessed of such confidence and bravado. Against her, now, he shook, and Aredhel felt a great tenderness rise up within her in answer.

After all, she was herself no stranger to night-terrors. The cold fingers of the clinic-dream stroked at her heart—although she had seen the place for herself, the thought of the nightmare still filled her with irrational dread.

He had made it onto the bed beside her; Aredhel loosed her arms from him, but did not back away. “Are you alright?”

“I’m fine,” Julian was quick to reply, but Aredhel was unconvinced. When she looked at him with skepticism, he added, “I’m fine, really. It’s just… just an old nightmare.”

He would not look at her; he busied himself with the task of extricating himself from the sheets. He moved unsteadily, jerkily, as though the slightest disturbance might startle him and send him sprawling onto the floor all over again. His hands moved quickly—and Aredhel realized that they were his hands, bare, ungloved. Her eyes took in his long fingers and strong wrists and she felt the strange compulsion to avert her eyes. She fought it.

She shouldn’t have. Julian pulled the sheet away and she found him not in his uniform but a simple linen shirt, cut in the front nearly to the navel. And then she did avert her eyes, and draw away from him, pulling her bag off her shoulder and setting it on the floor as an excuse to put some distance between them.

 _‘What is wrong with you? You have seen a naked man before. You’ve_ lain _with men before. Stop acting like a freak.’_

As she berated herself, however, a darkness caught her eye: Julian’s coat, folded neatly on top of a stool near the foot of the bed. The sight emptied her of her tenderness and bashfulness both. She remember the ink sigils on the paper, the palace guard, the many, _many_ reasons she had to leave Vesuvia—she had been a fool to run into the bedroom; she should have run for the door.

But she had not. Instead she had rushed to the side of a man she still did not entirely trust. Yet, despite herself, and rebelling against her all of her good sense, she had come to care for Julian. Enough, anyway, to want to soothe whatever panic had gripped him, at least until he fell back asleep. Then, she reasoned, she could get into his pockets, claim her prize, and slip away.

Aredhel straightened, turned back to Julian, arranged her features in an expression she hoped looked more sympathetic than scheming. “Do you have them often? The nightmares.”

Julian had taken his head in his hands. He hardly turned, but at the sound of her voice Aredhel saw him peer at her from between his fingers. “Not as much as it used to,” he told her, quietly. “But once in a blue moon….”

He looked like he wanted to continue, but he bit his tongue and shook his head. “Nevermind me. How did you sleep?”

“Well enough. Don’t change the subject. You look awful, Julian, what can I do?”

“It’s nothing,” he insisted, but he still looked pale; the purple beneath his eye stood out in sharp contrast with the rest of his face. “I’m better already, see? It was just a dream. It didn’t… it doesn’t mean anything.”

Meaning or none, it mattered. Dreams had force, and Aredhel—who had left her home for the sake of a dream—knew how they could hold you, cage you. “It’s not nothing,” she told him, quietly. “Do you want to talk about it? Would that help?”

“Not particularly,” Julian said, with a world-weary sigh.

But his gaze had caught on hers, and he softened looking at her. Before she could open her mouth to argue the point further, Julian was swinging his legs into the bed, stretching against the wall. He gathered his words, then he spoke.

“I am on a boat,” he began, his voice soft as sea-fog, the grey of his eye like storm-tossed water. He held her so fixedly in his gaze; he held his hands resting flat on his stomach. “The water is rough. I’m afraid I’m going to fall over the side, and into the water, but I can’t slow down. I can’t stop paddling, and I can’t go back. I’m going somewhere… I’m already too late.”

A tremble went through him. “In the dream, I think to myself that I may as well drown,” he whispered. “I know that when I arrive, what I find is going to destroy me. It will break my spirit just as easily as the sea would break my body.”

“That sounds awful.” Aredhel swallowed, stifled the urge to comfort him with her touch, to lay her bare hand over his. “Have you been shipwrecked before?”

“More than once,” he said with pride, mouth curved in a sly grin. “The first time, though, I almost didn’t make it. Mazelinka found us—me and my sister—washed up on the beach, barely breathing….” He sighed and shook his head at the memory. “Mazelinka took us somewhere we’d be looked after. We were raised in a big family, with lots of other kids… I wouldn’t trade it for anything.”

“What happened to your parents?”

Julian’s enthusiasm dimmed. “Our parents were on the ship with us,” he said. “They didn’t make it.”

She had known the answer to the question before she had asked it, but that did not lessen the blow. She felt a sudden kinship with Julian, then, thinking of Mazelinka patting his cheek, thinking of Asra’s smile and his snores. Bereft of the bonds of blood, they had both found love elsewhere, and used it to cobble together what families they could.

“The dream—it isn’t about that, though,” Julian said, hastily. “I don’t think it has anything to do with them—my parents—or the sea. I’m not... _remembering,_ and I know that, when I wake up. Because the ship is too small, and Portia isn’t in it with me. I just… I dream about it when I get anxious. It’s just a projection.  Just a ghost.”

He was trying to comfort _her,_ she realized. Her face must have betrayed her distress, and his words were meant to soothe her. But as he spoke to her about his nightmare, and about his family, Aredhel realized that, for all Julian’s talking, he had spoken very little about himself. Julian had recognized her face from the posters, he had read through her old unsent letters, and yet he was like a stranger to her.

Slowly, and carefully (to make sure she kept the distance between them) Aredhel lowered herself to the bed, stretching out beside him. Julian stilled, and his eye widened watching her, but he said nothing; Aredhel spoke first.

“Tell me more about your sister?”

Julian grinned, rolling onto his side to face her. “Pasha? She’s great. She’s just as good at getting into trouble as I am, but…” he laughed, “admittedly, she’s a little better at getting out of it. She’s funny, and strong, and she fights for what she believes in. She’s always there when I need her. I can’t wait for you to meet her.”

Aredhel’s stomach flipped. She thought of her papers, of Julian’s coat, of the door; “and when will that be?”

“Soon, I hope,” Julian said, smiling softly. His breathing had slowed, and the tension was gone from his body. “I think she can help us. But I’ll tell you about that later. Now, I think, we should rest.. It’s still early, and we have a lot to do today.”

“We do?”

Not that Aredhel had any intention of sticking around for any of it, but she could not help her curiosity.

“Oh yes, we do,” Julian said, then yawned, closing his eye. “Busy as bees, we’ll be.”

But then he cracked his eye open, and favored her with a look of affected indifference. “And you might as well stay, now,” he said, as though he were discussing the weather. “Mazelinka’s an early riser—she won’t be back, and it’s a little less stuffy here than the hiding hole.”

Sigils on coatpapers, patterns in numbers, a glamor, the street, the gate.

“Sure. Yeah, you’re right,” she told him, settling into the bed, her heart pounded with the force of her lie. “Might as well get another few hours.”

She’ll just wait, she reasoned. Soon enough, Julian would be asleep, and she could creep out of bed, grab her papers, and go. Aredhel did not want to meet his sister; she did not want to endanger _another_ person with the knowledge of her whereabouts. She wanted to get out of Vesuvia and back to her home, to her books and the open, the _dry_ heat—not this nonsense where the air felt sticky, as though the wind carried the sea with it.

They lay side by side, not touching, except for at the knees—and there, only occasionally, sometimes, when Julian exhaled. Aredhel watched the lines of his face, trying to guess whether or not he had fallen asleep—she watched him breathe. Watched his eyelid, and the fan of his dark lashes on his cheeks.

_‘Should I go now? Should I wait?’_

Beside him, she feigned sleep, and waited for her chance to leave. But the slow of Julian’s breathing calmed her, and when sleep came, it took the both of them. Aredhel closed her eyes and dreamt of fierce oceans, and smoke clouding the horizon, choking black.

  
  


Window-sound, the second time she woke: birds outside, footsteps passing on the street, distant conversation. Aredhel found herself alone. She was still curled on her side—she had not moved so much as an inch—but Julian’s side of the bed was empty, a rumpled pillow and the discarded sheet in the place where his body had been.

A pang went through her—because of the documents he had on his person, she told herself, and not, instead, because it seemed like he had abandoned her.

But then came the sound of footsteps, muffled but distinct, from the other side of the curtain, accompanied by the faint crackle of a fire in the hearth.

Aredhel went to the kitchen. The table had been set with two mismatched plates and two mugs, each of them decorated with different floral patterns, the lines of color spiderweb-thin. Two pastries sat on a third plate at the table’s center.

Julian had his back to her; he was busy rummaging through some Mazelinka’s cupboards. He was dressed, now, Aredhel noticed immediately—back in his dark uniform, his tall boots. Not his coat, however—that was slung over the chair nearest to her. The sight of it filled her with the fierce impulse to reach for it, to snatch her old papers from Julian’s pockets before he saw her. But almost as soon as it seized her, she shook it off, and hated herself for the thought.

“Ah, Aredhel! Perfect timing,” Julian called, brightly, as he turned and caught sight of her. “Which do you prefer, tea or coffee? Though I’m afraid there’s no milk.”

He was smiling at her, brighter than the sun coming in through the window. It haloed his red hair, a crown of rose and gold around his face, and Aredhel felt her guilt like a knife in her gut.

_‘He is going to get hurt, and it will be my fault.’_

Aredhel swallowed. “Tea is fine,” she told him, and managed a small smile. “And I take it without milk, anyway.”

If anything Julian’s face only brightened. “Excellent. Please, sit.” His smile was too much. His generosity—but then the kettle over the fire began to sing, and Aredhel was spared his cheerfulness, and his kindness, of which she was almost certainly undeserving. Julian reached for the mugs, pouring hot water into each of them, and Aredhel took a seat at the table.

“I wasn’t sure what you would want for breakfast,” Julian said, gesturing at the pastries as sat at the table. “But I can assure you—it was better for me to go out and buy something than pretend that I can cook. One of them is filled with jam, and the other with cheese, but a sweet sort of cheese.”

Again, Aredhel took in the set table, the mismatched plates. It reminded her of something Asra might do, though the days when Asra woke before her were few and far between. The thought of Asra, though, made her sore. She wondered where he was; she hoped his absence did not mean he was in danger himself. Though probably if he was, Asra was doing a much better job of navigating that danger than Aredhel was her own.

“Oh, no, I didn’t even think—do you like pastry?”

Aredhel turned to his voice. Julian was looking at her with something akin to panic, his eye wide and contrite.

“Some people prefer not to have a sweet breakfast, I know,” he continued, hurriedly. “I should have realized, I wasn’t thinking—”

“It’s lovely, Julian,” she said, and he quieted. “It was really thoughtful. I just don’t know which pastry to try,” she said—her second lie of the morning. “Why don’t we split both?”

Relief crashed over him. “Great idea,” Julian said, already rising out of his seat. “I’ll grab a knife.”

Julian headed for the drawers; Aredhel pulled her mug closer to her body and wrapped her hands around it, drawing comfort from its warmth. He was being too kind to her, and Aredhel felt her guilt, her anxiety like a stone in her stomach. Sooner or later she had to leave him. But how would she slip away, now that he was awake? She ought to have gone with the night, before Julian became more tangled in her mess.

“So, let’s talk strategy, yes?” he asked, dropping himself unceremoniously back into his chair. He dragged the plate of pastries across the table. “We have a lot of ground to cover today. Do you want to start with the clinic? I did promise to take you back there.”

Oh, that’s right. That was, allegedly, the reason why Aredhel had taken him up on that drink—to buy his guidance. But she hated the idea of going back there… or, rather, she hated the idea of going back there with _him._ His side of town wasn’t nearly as loosely protected as he insisted, and if they went back to the clinic, and Julian got caught with her—

“Aredhel?”

Her eyes snapped up from the mug. Julian was looking at her with concern. He was also holding the plate of pastries out to her—she observed at once that he’d given her the bigger halves of each.

Guilt sunk its fingers deeper into her.

Some treacherous hint of the tempest inside her must have passed across her face; Julian set the plate down at once and reached for her hands. He did not try to uncurl them from her mug, but he covered hers with his own. The leather was buttery soft over her knuckles. For the first time, she wished instead for the feeling of his skin, his bare fingers stroking hers. But she could not ask for it (she had already taken so much from him!) just as—now that she had caught his gaze across the table—she could not tear her eyes from his.

“Count Lucio was not a good man,” Julian said, his voice sure and steady. “Not by a long shot. And he was an even worse Count.”

_‘As I am a terrible woman for letting a stranger imperil himself so for me.’_

Julian’s hands reached further, his fingertips brushing her wrists; his voice lowered, and softened. “I don’t think you killed him, Aredhel. But even if you did, I’m going to help you until you are safe, I swear it.”

Aredhel’s features hardened with defiance, but when she spoke, she could not keep her voice from sounding small.

“You shouldn’t. Swear your help, or anything else. I am not worthy of it.”

She tried to twist her hands out of his; gently, but firmly, Julian held them fast.

“Aredhel, why would you say something like that?”

“Because it is the truth,” she insisted, and this time when she tugged her hands away Julian let them go. She straightened her posture, pulled her mug closer to her body, where Julian’s hands could not reach her, and gave Julian a hard stare. “You just met me, you don’t know anything about me—”

“I know that helping you is the right thing to do,” he said, with a noble, fairy-tale kind of conviction. “I know that if I don’t help you, I’ll be ashamed of it until the day I die.”

“But you could get hurt. You could get killed. Mazelinka—”

“—has stared down death more often than me, and always bested it,” Julian said, cutting her off. “Trust me, she can take care of herself. Probably better than the rest of us.”

Julian watched over the lip of his mug as she searched for a rebuttal. When she came up empty, he spoke again.

“You know at first, when I was summoned to the palace, I thought I was going to be arrested—or worse—for letting you go?” He stared into the black of his coffee, his eyebrows knit. “And as I walked up the steps, I realized it didn’t matter. I’m not a good man, Aredhel. And I won’t claim to be one. But helping you—I know that’s right. So… will you let me? Please.”

Aredhel had no reply for that. She did not want to refuse him, knowing it would hurt him—but accepting his help could lead him to a fate far worse than sore feelings. Perhaps it would be best to be cruel to him, but Aredhel wasn’t sure she has the stomach for it. She nibbled at her pastries in silence, took a sip of her tea. Both were delicious. Neither helped.

“Here’s an idea,” Julian said, setting his mug back on the table. When Aredhel finally found the courage to look at him he was smiling, but his pastry had gone untouched.

“You’ve only just come to Vesuvia, right? That’s why—why you don’t know your way around. So let’s put our little investigation on hold for the day, and let me show you around the city instead. I’ll give you the grand tour,” he said—then added, with a cheeky grin, “and the ‘family and friends’ discount for my services, of course.”

She couldn’t deny that she was touched by his efforts to cheer her— but she was deeply skeptical of the solution he’d devised to do so. She could hold a glamor, yes, but not all day, and it seemed a waste of precious magic to spend it on something so frivolous.

“And how exactly am I supposed to go sightseeing in broad daylight?”

“Nonsense. There are places in my neighborhood I can show you—you’ll be safe there.” Julian watched her eagerly—hopefully. “Hell, we’ll go see a show! The theatre is beautiful—you’ll love it. And in the dark, with everyone looking at the stage, you won’t have to worry about being seen.”

A show? Aredhel knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t say it didn’t appeal to her. If nothing else, it would give her a chance to sit still for an hour or so, in the dark, where propriety might stop Julian from trying to constantly make conversation with her. When he spoke, it was difficult to focus on anything else, and there was so much else she needed to focus on: how to get out of the city, papers or none; how to get back to Nopal and make sure she hadn’t led Asra to danger with her juvenile antics; her innocence, or lack thereof. All of these questions swirling inside of her made the dark and relative quiet seem all the more appealing.

“It’s just a little community theater,” Julian insisted, voice softer. With a grin, he added, “don’t worry, there won’t be any guards,” and Aredhel felt her will collapse.

“Come on,” Julian goaded, “let’s just go have a good time, yeah? You need it, I think.”

She couldn’t hold a glamor all day… but she could glamor herself on the way to the theater, and let the spell drop once the performance began.

“Okay. Yes. I’ll go with you.”

His smile nearly split his face; Aredhel found it difficult to look at him, his joy too brilliant. It was all the more difficult to bear because of the pride and the warmth she felt, knowing that she had caused him to smile like that— _‘This is a terrible idea.’_

“Fantastic. Great. Wonderful,” Julian said, and then at least she was spared—he bowed his head to take his first bite of pastry, washed it down with a bit of coffee.

“We’ve actually slept quite late,” he told her after he swallowed, appraising the light in the window. “I think by the time we finish here, the ticket counter will be open. We can head right over.”

  
  


Within the quarter hour, they had finished eating. Julian donned his coat; Aredhel cast her glamor. Although this perturbed him somewhat, he let the spell go without comment—and in any case, the illusion did not stop him from reaching for her. She had taken the appearance of a man both taller and broader than Julian, hoping the illusion might make her feel stronger, more confident, more capable of resisting. But once they were out Mazelinka’s door, he slipped his hand easily around hers without hesitation; after a brief hesitation, Aredhel decided to let him. He led them along the streets, deeper into his district.

Did this mean she trusted him, Aredhel wondered? Then again, perhaps trust had less to do with emotion than pragmatism. Glamored or not, Aredhel felt safer with him—or, if not wholly safe, safer with him than without. Julian knew his way around the city like the back of his hand. He knew where to run, and the good places to hide. As long as there was a chance of more running and hiding in her future, maybe it was better to keep him close.

“You’re going to love the theatre,” Julian told her, sparing her a delighted glance as he took them ‘round a corner. “It’s a real work of art—frescoes on the walls, gilt on the ceiling. It used to be a teahouse, actually, and something else before that, though I’m not sure what. God only knows how long the thing has been standing—it’s ancient. An antique! Gorgeous, though, inside and out. It has a very romantic—ha, romantic in the ahh, artistic sense—kind of charm—you’ll see.”

At least, like this, she no longer had to look at him. They walked side-by-side; Julian swung their hands, fingers laced, between them. He walked with her like Asra used to— _‘Did,’_ she corrected to herself, _‘does’—_ and his voice was so bright, his enthusiasm so effusive. It would be so easy—it was almost too tempting—to believe that everything was normal. That a date at the theater matinee was only that—not a stranger’s attempt to provide her some brief and ill-advised respite from the task of clearing her name.

(That was what it felt like, though: Julian holding her hand. His effervescence. All of it, apparently, simply because he was excited to share something with her.)

It was not a far walk to the theatre. Soon, they crossed into a plaza, and Julian thrust out his free arm, pointing straight ahead of them.

“There. That’s it.”

A large building—barely adorned, box-shaped—squatted on the opposite end of the square. Weather-worn scaffolding stretched along its front face, veiling it. It looked as though whatever restoration was being done had long ago slowed to a halt, but the lumber had been left, still clinging to the facade. It was a far cry from the astronomical clock Aredhel had seen a few days earlier, but there was something warmer, more welcoming, about the theater in front of her. Already there was a line stretching from the ticket window back into the plaza. Friends and families were chatting excitedly, disappearing between the theatre’s tall doors and into the dark.

But the theatre failed to hold Aredhel’s attention. Instead, she felt herself drawn, almost compelled, towards the very center of the square. There stood a fountain. It was plain and unassuming, but her gaze was caught by the falling water, sparkling like jewels in the sun… and she felt a strange sensation within her, a kind of rebellion, a stubborn refusal that, _‘no, if that water should gleam like anything it should gleam silver.’_

“It’s a popular spot at night,” came Julian’s voice at her side. Aredhel turned to him. “For you couples, I mean,” he explained, “who have nowhere else to meet. Bit of a local landmark for that sort of thing.” He colored under her gaze though, and ducked his head, rubbing at the back of his neck anxiously. “During the day, though, it’s mostly just for making wishes.”

Only then did Aredhel notice the bottom of the fountain. It was covered with small bronze coins; it snared the sunlight like the scales of a fish. Julian fumbled with his coin pouch. Then he pressed two coins into her palm, and closed her fingers over them.

“I’ll go buy us our tickets,” he said, and _gods,_ even though she was glamored to look like some kind of mountain man, he was looking at her so intensely. A faint smile—not of amusement, but of… nervousness? Faint hope?—curled the lips of his wide mouth.

“Make a wish while you wait for me?” he asked her. “One for me, and one for you.”

He swiped his thumb along the knuckles of her fingers, then left her. Aredhel opened her hand.

“Julian!”

He stopped in his tracks and spun to look at her.

“You gave me a silver!”

She pinched the coin between her fingers, and held it up in the light where the sun would catch the cool grey glint of it, and not the copper of a cheap bronze coin.

“Yes?” he called, the word colored with uncertainty. Then, voice wavering, “Well, I—I didn’t want to assume, but I…”

He grinned, but uneasily, then jogged back to her side. Gently, he wrapped his hand around her elbow and drew her close, placing his mouth beside her ear. His breath was warm on her cheek.

“I thought you might wish for your freedom. And that is worth a silver to me, at least.”

Then he smiled at her, released her elbow—and then he was off again, “I’ll be back!” tossed hastily over his shoulder as he crossed the plaza, heading towards the ticket window, leaving Aredhel alone with her discomfort.

Julian’s enthusiasm went with him and left her like a sail without a wind behind it, and to that great vacuum returned her shame. Why did Julian care so much for her? She rubbed her thumb over the silver coin, the embossment already wearing away from passing through so many hands. He was a fool, she thought—a lovely fool, but a fool all the same.

She skipped the flat bronze coin across the surface of the fountain-water; it jumped once, twice, three times before the falling water struck it; as the coin drifted downwards, Aredhel wished to see Asra again, one way or another... no matter what might come after.

And though she was not really one for wishing, or superstitions, she pressed the silver coin to her lips, and then she flipped it. It spun and arc’d across the air before falling with a satisfying _plop_ in the fountain, and as it did Aredhel wished that, no matter what might come to pass, it would end with Julian safe and unharmed.

Julian was still standing in line; Aredhel could pick out the red glint of his hair in the sun from across the square. So she sat herself upon the lip of the fountain, and turned back to the water, eyes skitting over the wealth of wishes in its depths. Something about the sight felt like an itch at the back of her throat, and something unruly in her kept insisting there was something about it not quite right. The feeling was slippery, though, and every time she reached for it, it felt all the more distant—it was like trying to make out her glamor’s reflection on the water’s fitful surface.

Beneath it, Julian’s silver coin stood out like a sore thumb against the bronze. By nightfall she was sure someone would have fished it out. She suspected Julian knew that, too. A part of her wondered if that made the wish more powerful or less—but if wishes, like magic, had rules, Aredhel did not know them. But silver—why did the silver in the fountain look familiar? Why did it look _right?_

“So, upon further consideration, I think we should, ah, perhaps, not go to the theatre today.”

Aredhel turned. Julian stood over her, a dark and imposing silhouette in his uniform and coat—but his arms were folded over his chest, his spine hunched, and he was tapping his foot anxiously.

“What?” Aredhel was more confused than disappointed. “But you were so excited—you couldn’t stop talking about it on the way over here.”

Julian took his lip between his teeth. His eye darted between her face and the fountain water behind her. “Well, actually, the, uh, the theaters closed. They’re not doing a performance today, so— _hah_ —we couldn’t go, even if I wanted.”

It was so obviously untrue, Aredhel was almost offended. “I saw you buying tickets,” Aredhel said, flatly. “I can see people going inside.”

“Did you?” Julian replied, anxiously. “I had hoped, maybe, the fountain—would you believe, the performance was sold out!”

Aredhel was not sure that she trusted Julian. But now, at least, watching him, she knew he had not (until now) tried to lie to her. He was terrible at it. All the same, she felt what trust she had in Julian evaporating; she did not like that he was trying to keep something from her, however badly he was going about doing so.

“Julian, what is going on? Did you see something? Was there a guard over there?” she guessed, craning her neck to see the theater behind him. “ A poster?”

Julian grimaced. “Not the kind of poster you’re thinking.”

Her eyes widened in surprise, but Julian said nothing more, only watched her with tense apprehension. Very well—Aredhel did not need answers from him. She had eyes of her own.

She leapt to her feet and brushed passed him, making towards the theater. But she did not get two strides before she felt Julian’s hand around hers, and heard her name leaping from his throat, and the note of panic in his voice—

“No! Aredhel, wait, just—!”

She spun on him. “Are you going to tell me what you’re keeping from me?”

The conflict tore at his features; he looked hesitant, self-important, and mournful in turn. But as Aredhel stared him down his defiance went out of him. His shoulders loosened, and he looked at the ground.

“I just… I don’t want to hurt you.”

That was a sweet notion, but just as foolish as it was endearing. Julian still held her hand; her fingers curled around his in a light squeeze. Gently, she replied, “I want to trust you. To believe you. But if this is going to work, Julian, you can’t keep secrets from me.”

His resolve crumbled. “You are right,” he acquiesced with a sigh. “I shouldn't be keeping things from you. Don’t know why I tried.” He spared one nervous glance at the theater across the plaza, then looked back up at her. (Up, because she was still glamored to look like a man two hands taller than Julian and twice as broad.)

“Remember when I told you that Count Lucio wasn’t particularly popular on this side of town?”

At once—at the mere mention of the Count’s name—Aredhel felt like she’d been plunged into an ice bath. “I remember something like that, yeah.”

“Right. So, uh, after he died—pretty soon after, apparently? Well, we’ve always had a lot of artists on this side of town—cheap living, you know—and a few of them, a playwright and a painter and a couple of musicians were drinking, and decided—in the spirit of good fun, of course, and not malice—that the best way to pay tribute to the life of Count Lucio, who so loved to be celebrated, was to create a satire based on the events of his life.” He added, pointedly, “ _All_ of the events of his life.”

Julian didn’t need to say anymore. His nervousness—the way it still hung over him like a shroud, betraying there was more bad news yet unsaid—was enough for Aredhel to put two and two together.

“I’m in it, aren’t I?”

Julian grimaced. He clasped her hand between both of his, and stepped closer, as though to comfort her with his proximity (though it did anything but—only made her more conflicted, guilty, confused.)

“Only at the very end,” he explained, hurriedly, “but even so, _most_ audience members consider you to be the hero of the play! Actually, it’s considered great honor to be given the role. As in, the actors often fight over it. Including the men.”

Aredhel felt sick to her stomach—not so much at the celebration of the Count’s murder, but at the sureness with which she was linked to it. That she was being glorified as some kind of heroic, populist outlaw did not help.

“Julian, if everyone is so convinced I did it… maybe they’re right,” she admitted, looking at her shoes. “What if you are helping me, and I turn out to be just what everyone says I am? You must admit it's a possibility.”

“I’m sorry, Aredhel. This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” Julian said, kindly, gently. His eyebrows met above his nose, drawn together in distress. He added, with a wry tone and a self-deprecating smile, “I really am worthless, aren’t I? I ended up reminding you of the very thing I was trying to get you to forget. I tried to cheer you up, and I’ve only made things worse…”

He took one each of her hands in his and faced her, took a deep breath, and smiled serenely. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Aredhel Mooney,” he said, very, very quietly, and with some glee, like her name was a treasure he was hoarding jealousy. “I can’t tell you the future. And I don’t know, yet, what happened in your past. But I won’t regret helping you, no matter what we find out.”

She wondered what they must look like, slender Julian clutching the meaty hands of a hulking woodsman, looking into his eyes with such delight. Reaching for her, even though she did not look like herself. He should not care for her as much as he did—it was illogical. Unreasonable. Arguably, suicidal. And if she were half as kind and compassionate and intelligent as Asra was always telling her she was—if she was only half the witch he thought she was—she would have left Julian that morning before all his illogical, unreasonable impulses landed him in trouble.

But she had not left—she had stayed. And as long as she stayed in Vesuvia, she needed Julian… regardless of whether or not she had come to trust him, or care for him. And so she crumbled.

“Okay,” she said, quietly, looking not quite at him. “Yes.”

His eye softened, but his smile did not waver. “You don’t really believe me,” he said. “That’s alright. You don’t have to trust me, yet. Today we won’t get into any trouble—I swear it. We’ll just get to know each other a little better, yes? Get you acquainted with the city.”

“It’s a shame about the theatre. But don’t worry,” he told her, with a grin full of boyish enthusiasm. “I have plenty more to show you.”

  
  


In fact, by the end of the day, Julian had shown her very little of what he had intended. They had barely arrived at the Grand Bazaar. Aredhel had thought, out of the corner of her eye, she saw Julian trying to surreptitiously buy a pendant she had been admiring ( _'Foolish! Save your coins for someone who will keep their neck'_ )—when Julian caught sight of one of the palace guard, and led her away. In the teahouse he took her to afterwards, he made a pun so terrible, so _corny_ , and Aredhel laughed so hard she spat out her tea and lost control of her glamor. Everyone else in the teahouse had stared (though perhaps more at Aredhel’s uncontrollable laughter—it felt so _good_ to laugh—than any lapse in her spellwork) and Julian had thrown some money on the table and ushered Aredhel out, the both of them still clutching their sides as he did so. She had laughed until she wheezed. Julian then proposed to take her for a sail; on the water, at least, she could admire the city without worrying about being seen. But they had hardly gone five blocks before it began to rain. A great and swollen summer storm came out of nowhere, and even though Julian had held his coat over their heads, they were both soaked to their skin by the time they arrived at the Rowdy Raven for an early dinner.

By the end of the day, Julian had shown her little of what he had intended, but he had given her this: a way back to herself. After all day spent chased from here to there, running from peril had begun to feel less like survival and more like sport. She felt, if not safe, than invincible: so armored with joy that nothing could touch her. She felt reckless, exhilarated— _alive._

Halfway through their meal, they were joined by Julian’s friends. A few of them Aredhel recognized from the evening prior. The affection between Julian and these people was plain, but the mood around the table was a little tense: it seemed his friends were not sure how to address her, or talk to her, or whether or not they should even look at her. (This latter reservation, however, did not stop many of them from giving her curious, awed stares.)

But as deftly as he had led her through the city streets, so too did Julian quash the unease: he heralded the bartender, and called for a round of vodka shots. After that, Aredhel got on with his friends famously. She was not a heavy drinker, and the vodka burned in the back of her throat, but after she had swallowed it everything felt warmer. More comfortable, like leather boots that have been well broken-in. She laughed and joked with Julian’s friends as if they were her own.

Sometimes, though, she would quiet, and look at Julian, and she was reminded of what he had said to her: _‘You don’t have to trust me yet.’_ Did she trust him now? Two vodka shots in and still comfortable in his company—that was a certain kind of trust. But maybe not the one that mattered. She had definitely warmed to him, grown _too_ fond of him—but without trust, that essential thing, she feared her fondness of him was more weakness than strength.

_‘If, after everything you’ve been through today, you still do not trust him entirely, you should leave him. You are flush with drink and your judgement is unreliable—you are going to get yourself into trouble.’_

But Aredhel made no movement to leave.

Within an hour, the bar had become raucous. The crowd around their table swelled. Julian introduced everyone who came over by name, and Aredhel smiled at each of them in turn a they asked her about herself. Most of their questions she could not answer, but for the first time, the blank absence in her memory did not disturb her; she replied as vaguely as she could, but rather than discourage them, doing so seemed to lend her an air of greater mystery.

Julian’s friends had ordered a colorful platter of different pickled vegetables. In between rounds of her friendly interrogation, they implored her to try the different foods. She snacked on a delightfully spicy rhubarb; a cherry tomato, bright-red, exploded in her mouth in salty-sweet brine. She chased each with different infusions of vodka: dill, ginger, garlic.

Every so often, one of them would ask her—beg her, really—to tell them about the night she murdered the Count. “Is it like they say in the play? Did it happen like that?” But every time, Julian chastised his friends—“Now, now, Lyoshka, I’ve already told you; it’s too gruesome a tale for a fine night like this. Why spoil it?”—and then he’d pass Aredhel a conspiratory wink. The winks became less and less furtive the tipsier they both became, but withholding the tale only drove his friends all the wilder. To her surprise, Aredhel found she enjoyed playing along.

“It’s better not to talk about it,” she said, with a portentous air. “Sometimes, when I tell the story, it makes his spirit restless—better not to invoke it in the city.”

That had sent the table into howls and fits, and those there gathered had continued to plead with her until Julian once again diverted their attention. He began to tell a story, and though at least half the crowd had heard it before, still they listened attentively, and cheered in approval when he finished. Then they were off again—boasting, bragging, cajoling. Mostly telling stories, trading them like currency. Aredhel breathed, aware of the drink-flush in her cheeks, her heart pounding in her chest; she felt effervescent. It was loud, and silly, and joyful. And though she kept glancing back, the raven never came to disturb the bells by the window. Soon she stopped looking.

“What about Aredhel?” Volodya asked, gesturing across the table. “Let’s have a story from our guest, even if it isn’t the one we had asked to hear. Where do you come from?” he asked her. “What is it like there?”

Aredhel racked her brain. Surely she had something—some mischief she had gotten up to with Asra in the last few years that she could spin into a compelling enough yarn—but Julian was already covering for her:

“Nonsense! You don’t ask a magician for stories,” he said, passing her a glance out of the corner of his eye. “You ask them for magic.”

Aredhel smiled, brilliant and unreserved. “Be careful what you wish for, _Ilyushka_ ,” she teased, using the nickname his friends threw about so readily. “You can’t handle my magic.”

A chorus of _“ooohs”_ went round the table. Julian colored around his ears, but then propped an elbow on the wood to turn and better look at her. Whatever his embarrassment, his tone was one of delight. “Is that a challenge?”

“A word of caution,” Aredhel replied, cheerily. “But I’m sure you know your limits better than I.”

“You don’t know me very well at all, if you think I have enough sense to heed such caution.” He watched her intently, fingers drumming on the table. “Do you have the Arcana? That is always a good party trick.”

“‘ _Do I have the Arcana_ ,’” Aredhel repeated, with a scoff, and a hint of asperity. A bit of sleight of hand—she was not yet quite drunk enough to lose her coordination—and the cards were jumping between her hands, shuffling in the air before she spread them face-down in an arc on the table. “Here’s your magic,” she said, goading him, gesturing to the cards. “Pick three.”

A hush descended. Aredhel leaned back in her seat, arms folded, grinning. But she was not fool enough to think she had backed him into a corner. One day had been enough to learn that Julian thrived in the spotlight—he was as natural a performer as he was a storyteller—and when he paused before reaching for the cards, Aredhel knew he had done it not out of fear or genuine hesitation, but to thicken the tension and the excitement of the crowd. When at last his gloved had moved across the table towards them, he made a show of drawing his cards: his fingers waved artfully as he gravitated towards one card, then another. When he did draw three cards, he did so with considerable flourish, before arranging them in front of him on the table.

Aredhel reached for the first.

“The Lovers,” she announced, holding the card up so everyone gathered could see the image on the card, “Reversed.”

A croon went up around the table, and a few snickers. “A tryst in your future, Jules?”

“Not his future—his past,” Aredhel corrected. She set the card flat on the table. The Arcana spoke as plainly as ever… however, for the first time in the three years she had been reading the cards, Aredhel could not resist the impulse to embellish—to perform, a little, herself. “A tragic heartbreak, perhaps?” she asked, smiling mischievously at him. “A bitter anguish? Were you abandoned, Julian? Or no—no, it was you that left, wasn’t it? And separating yourself from your companion was like cleaving yourself in two.”

Whispers around the table. All eyes were focused on Julian, waiting for him to confirm the magician’s prophecy, or decry it as nonsense. He did neither. He kept his grey eye fixed on Aredhel’s green. He was smiling, cryptically; his middle finger was tracing an idle arc along his bottom lip.

“Go on.”

Aredhel lifted the second card. “The Page of Cups,” she announced, raising it just as she had the first. “This card represents your present.”

“Is it a good one?” someone behind her asked, and she heard the shuffling of chairs and bodies as they pressed closer to get a better look at the image of the persimmon fish, the overflowing chalice. “What does the Page say?”

It was a little more complicated than that, she wanted to say. None of the Arcana were inherently good, or bad. Their meaning varied depending on the query, and the querent. But she did not get the words out—her attention was stolen by the card in her hand. It was seldom that the minor Arcana spoke to her as intensely as the major Arcana did, but the Page in her hand was chatty, and what he said took the spirit of play out of her, a little bit.

“He says that you are a dreamer,” she told Julian, without showmanship or bravado. “Still idealistic, or trying to be, at the beginning of a new adventure. The journey you are on will be filled with happy surprises, if you trust in your intuition.”

Aredhel dared to look up at Julian—his expression had not changed, but his pallor looked a little green. “Is that it? That’s all he’s saying?” he asked. Although his voice was nonchalant—not quite indifferent, but close—his finger tapped anxiously at his lip.

“Yes,” she admitted, filing her observation away for later consideration. “But there is another card for you still…” She turned her eyes to the table—she did not like the unease on Julian’s face—then reached for the third card.

She flipped it—Death, Upright—and the bar broke into an uproar.

“Oh, Ilyushka, we barely knew you!” bemoaned Volodya, raising his half-empty shot glass to Julian in salute.

“Well, you had to know he was going to get himself in trouble sooner or later!”

His friends were so busy with their jokes, and their laughter so loud, that Aredhel could not get an word in edgewise to tell Julian that death was not death but change, a transformation. Metamorphosis. That an end was also a beginning. Instead, she could only watch him, as his friends prodded him and bumped shoulders with him and toasted his good health. Gradually the his face grew less pallid, and he came back to himself.

“Live your last days best, Ilya!” said Anya, raising her glass.

Another added, “Yes, with drink and with women!”

“And men!”

“And music!”

And that—“ _Music!”_ —drew the bar’s attention, more than drink, more than women, more even than the heroic stranger who Julian had brought with him. Now, they clamored for a song. “You demanded a trick from the magician, Ilya, now how will you repay it?” The band came over for the corner. Chairs were swept aside, a space was cleared. Julian sat among the musicians.

Someone pressed a vielle into his hands. It was a curious instrument. Aredhel had never seen anything like it before, and was trying to figure out how it was meant to be played when Julian tucked it under his chin. He spoke to the other musicians in a low voice as he pulled off his gloves. Aredhel’s eyes followed his white, long-fingered hands as they twisted the vielle’s knobs and plucked its strings, tuning the instrument—until she caught herself staring, and hastily pulled her gaze away.

Then Julian put a bow to the strings, and after one downward stroke the bar was in fits again. A roar went up in the crowd that nearly drowned out the music, before the other musicians joined Julian, and the melody rose above the din. The song was bright and cheery—a crowd-pleaser. Try though she did, Aredhel could not keep herself from watching Julian. How quickly his fingers slid up and down the neck of the vielle, stretching for the exultant high notes! But something about the frantic pace of the melody made Aredhel feel like he was not playing, but running—running up and down the arpeggios, running away from whatever spell had come over him when she had shown him the Page of Cups.

He did not look at her. It was almost suspicious, that he did not glance at her even once, after looking at her all day—but then again, he was watching the other musicians, keeping time. Aredhel was relieved. It meant that she could watch him however she liked, and he would not catch her. She did not want him to catch her staring at his forearms, his bare hands, his wrist flying along the body of the instrument; she did not want to give him that power over her. But he did not look, and Aredhel was left to watch him in peace, tipping another shot of dill-infused vodka down her throat to quench its sudden, peculiar dryness.

Warmed by the drink, and moved by the music, Aredhel sank more comfortably into her chair. A part of her wished that Julian would never stop playing. He looked so happy here among his friends—carefree. Not burdened, the way he had been when she read his cards, or when he had told her about the play at the theater. At the fountain she had wished him safety. Now, in the crowd but also alone, she wished happiness for him. In exchange for his help, she hoped she might give him some joy.

No, more than joy—the vodka had plied the locks of her mind enough for the secret to slip free, the one she had refused to acknowledge sober: she wanted to give him pleasure.

  
  


By the time they left the Raven, the sky was dark with star-studded night. The rain had ceased, and left the air cool and fragrant. “Probably too late for a sail,” Julian said, craning his neck upwards, telling time by the arc of the stars. “But I can take you down to the docks, if you like—we can take the scenic route home. It’s such a nice night, it would be a shame to waste it.”

Aredhel had seen the lagoon at night, the play of the slender moon on its tossing waves. But after three years in the desert, even three nights beside it was not enough to take the novelty and the beauty out of it.

She nodded. “Yeah, let’s.”

The drinking and the revelry had worn Julian out somewhat—or at least, made him less talkative. As they meandered through the city streets, resplendent with the sheen of spent rain, Julian did not speak to her, nor did he reach for her hand. His own were shoved deep in his pockets, his collar turned up against the cold.

Soon they came to the docks; Julian led her out to the edge of a pier. His body met the wood with a little ‘ _oof_ ’ of effort, and he let his legs dangle over the water.  But even when Aredhel joined him, he did not speak to her, only flashed her a small and distracted smile before his eyes went out across the water and he became remote.

He looked lost in thought—tormented by thought. Aredhel did not flatter herself by thinking she was the source of his torment, but she saw it, all the same. And she found his silence unnerving. The only other time she could remember him being so quiet was when they had been hiding in alleys, chased by palace guards.

Perhaps flattery might loosen his tongue. “You played very beautifully,” she said.

Julian started, coming out of his thoughts as if he had just remembered where he was. “Did I?” he asked, genuine surprise in his voice. “I was alright, I suppose. A little sharp on some of the melodies.”

“I didn’t notice. I thought it was lovely.”

“If you think I’m any good as a musician, you should see me act,” he said, grinning. “Much more compelling, I can assure you.”

“A better actor than you are a liar, I hope,” she teased, and in her tipsiness could not resist bumping her side against his. “Acting, playing, healing—a man of many talents. Does that mean you were also lining up for my role in that play? Ready to bruise some faces for the ‘honor’?”

“Aredhel, you wound me,” he said, swooning as if from a blow. “No, I did not have to fight.” He watched her from the corner of his eyes, his smile mischievous. “I’m a good enough actor that when I tried out for it one year, they just gave it to me. I was much more menacing than you, though—of that I can assure you. And much less sweet than you have proved to be.”

 _‘Sweet?’_ Aredhel thought to herself, compelled both to pull away from him indignantly and draw nearer, but she was not forced to choose. Julian’s brow furrowed.

“You’re shivering,” he said, matter-of-factly. “I should have noticed sooner. Here, take my coat.”

“I’m fine,” she protested. She drew her shawl more tightly around her shoulders. “The air is only brisk. It’s nice.”

“It’s chilling, is what it is, and you’ll catch cold, and the next time we’re running for our lives you’ll give us away with a sneeze. Here,” he said, and she felt the rough fabric of his trench-coat, still warm from his residual body heat, fall over her shoulders. “We’ll share.”

The warmth of it startled her. Still, she managed to grumble a half-sardonic, “well, if the Doctor orders it,” before wrapping the coat more tightly around her body.

But beneath the coat it was impossible to ignore how close she was to Julian. He had not held her hand on the way to the docks, but now they sat, shoulder to shoulder, thighs kissed along one another. And—Aredhel could smell him. Or smelled something that _had_ to be him, his smell. His coat was thick with it—coffee and leather and cedar—and it was not unpleasant, but it made Aredhel wish for another inch between them.

(Wish for, but not seize; she did not move to lean away from him.)

Her eyes went out across the water. Hardly anything could be made out, not the distant bar of land that hemmed in the lagoon, nor the other islands that dotted the water. But Aredhel could make out one, because above its trees and hedge she could see geometric shapes—buildings—silhouetted against the stars. It looked abandoned; not a fire or a light flickered within.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing out at the water.

Julian did not have to follow her finger to know where she was pointing. “That’s the Lazaret,” he said, automatically.

“The Lazaret? Is it abandoned?” she asked, straining her eyes against the dark. “I’d have liked a boat, before I ran into you again. I could have hid there for a few days. If it’s as empty as it looks, I might not have left.”

Beside her, Julian shivered—she could feel his body tremble against hers. “It’s where the city sent their plague victims to die. That is, before there were too many sick people to move, before the bodies were being piled up and burned in the streets.” He shook his head, and turned his eyes away from her. “You don’t want to go there, Aredhel. There’s too much pain, there. Too much history.”

Aredhel passed him a skeptical glance. “You said you were a man of science,” she joked, good naturedly. “What are you afraid I’ll find there—ghosts?”

“Something like that, yes.”

His face was grim, and his voice too-serious—it did not suit him. Aredhel remembered the clinic, and wondered how many of his patients Julian had sent across the water, knowing they would not come back. He must have seen so much death… Aredhel remembered his earlier silence. Was this what had been occupying his thoughts?

...she wanted to see him happy. She wanted to give him joy.

“Have it your way, then,” Aredhel said, settling back into the warmth of his coat, pressing closer. “I won’t steal a boat and take an island for myself. I’ll give up my own little kingdom and stick with you instead, and you’ll simply have to endure my magic and my… _sweetness_. As you called it.”

Julian laughed, and the sound was light. “You make it sound so difficult. To ‘endure’ you.”

“Of course it will be difficult,” Aredhel quipped, sniffing a little at the cold. “How many condemned men have you rescued from the hangman’s noose? It’s not exactly going to be a picnic.”

“I think I can fit a picnic in,” Julian said, playfully, “somewhere between the running and the hiding. You bring the cheese, I’ll bring the wine?”

But then the mirth went out of his face, and he looked at her more seriously. “Actually, we should probably talk about that—what we should do next. And if you don’t have any ideas, I will volunteer one.”

“Please, go ahead.”

“Well, what if we began with the scene of the alleged crime?” he said, turning to her and waggling his brows. When that failed to induce a reaction, he elaborated: “I can get you in to the palace. To the Count’s old wing. Into his bedroom, too, probably.”

“What?” Aredhel nearly leapt to her feet. All day Julian had worked to put her at ease, but now she was just as tense as she had been that morning; she felt the muscles in her shoulders tighten. “Why would I want to go there?? How?”

“One,” Julian said, lifting his hand and raising a finger, “because, apparently, it’s been untouched since he died. So, I don’t know, I thought maybe you could do some… spooky detective magic, or something,” he said, waving his hands in a vague gesture, “to help us get to the bottom of it. And two, because I have a guy—actually, a gal—on the inside.”

“Who is it?” Aredhel asked.

“The Countess’s handmaiden,” he said, beaming. “My sister. Portia.”

No— _no._ The last thing Aredhel wanted was to make someone else complicit in her concealment. And if they were caught, Portia would suffer with them. “I don’t know about that, Julian,” she said, hurried, discouraging. “Do you really want to drag your sister into this?”

“Oh, come on. It’ll be fun! An adventure.” His voice was jovial and bright. “You can do that... spell again, disguise yourself, and we’ll poke around the Count’s boudoir. I hear no one even goes there anymore.”

Aredhel wondered if he did not grasp the danger of what he was proposing, or if he did not care. Without a trace of hesitation he had taken him to Mazelinka’s, endangering her and himself both. Now he was proposing to drag his sister into her mess as well—Aredhel would not stand for it. She had done nothing to deserve this attention; she had given him nothing in return—

And it occurred to her, then. And the thought shamed her so deeply she blushed (or was that the drink?) and cursed under her breath. ‘ _Ungrateful wretch.’_ She wished the sea would swallow her.

“What was that?” Julian asked, dipping his head down towards her, as though to put his ear closer to her mouth.

“Julian, I just realized… I don’t think, all today and yesterday—I don’t think I’ve thanked you yet. For letting me go at the clinic, for helping me—for everything.”

He looked embarrassed, and he drew away from her. “You don’t have to thank me, Aredhel. It’s not—I mean, I _want_ to help you. I’m not doing it, you know, _for_ anything, for your gratitude, or whatever. I just… I had a really good time with you today…” he said. But then his voice trailed off, and he cast his eyes once more to the lagoon, the islands, the Lazaret. “Though that didn’t really help much towards proving your innocence, did it?”

His hand rested on his knee; without thinking (or thinking only of comforting him) Aredhel covered it with her own. Julian’s head turned sharply, looking at her hand atop his, then into her face.

“It did help, Julian,” she said. “I really needed that, just a normal day. Well, mostly normal. _Thank you_. I… I’m really glad we ran into each other again.”

“Me too,” Julian agreed, quietly. He had not taken his eyes off of her. “Really glad.”

She wanted to give him gladness. And oh, his broad shoulders, his narrow hips—she wanted to take him someplace hidden and pleasure him until he could take no more of until, until he was sated with it. And if she did not do it now, the vodka warned her, she may no get another chance—and if the Countess did not catch her, she suspected the hunger she felt for Julian in that moment might kill her, anyway, if left unchecked and unaddressed. Simply—she longed for him. She could imagine—she must be imagining—that she could feel him longing for her, too.

Aredhel wished she were looking at the stars, and not his face. Suddenly, and against her better judgement, she sputtered, “Julian, last night—you know, it isn’t that I wasn’t—that I didn’t want to share the bed with you. I mean, it wasn’t anything you did, I just… I thought it would be safest for everyone if I hid while we slept. That’s all.”

He blinked, and in the in-between, when his eyes were closed, his face steeled into something unreadable, impenetrable. He looked out to sea again. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“I see.”

She should have been discouraged—his clipped answers should have been answer enough—but now that she had begun, it was as though she could not stop herself. She thought of his naked wrists. “I only mean that, if Mazelinka isn’t home when we get back… maybe I will join you in the bed. For a little while.” After a beat, she added, as an attempt at humor, “If you want to sleep with me, though, you’ll have to join me in the hiding hole.”

But the joke fell flat, swallowed up into sea-sound with no laughter to follow it. Julian was looking at her again—he looked neither aroused nor flattered, nor disgusted, only desperately sad. He leaned closer and Aredhel’s heart—treacherous—lodged somewhere in her throat, as though it sought to leap out of her. But whatever hope his nearness had inspired in her, it was snuffed just as quickly as it was ignited. Kindly, softly, Julian spoke.

“You’re drunk.”

Thoughtless, she argued, “Not _that_ drunk.”

“Yes, you are,” he said, his voice maddeningly gentle—Aredhel hated him for it. If he was going to reject her the least he could do was be callous about it, that she might feel entitled to resent him for it. “Your breath reeks of vodka,” he continued. “And candidly, Aredhel? I’m too drunk myself.”

Julian’s hand crept around the back of her neck. Embarrassed, Aredhel almost resisted him—but then she yielded, and let him guide her head towards his. His lips met her hairline tenderly. He kissed her as Asra might. As a father might.

“Think carefully about what you want to say to me, Aredhel Mooney,” he breathed against her scalp, “and if you still want to say it tomorrow, tell me then, when you are sober. But right now, I think it’s best if we go home.”

No sooner had he spoken the words than he had ducked out of his own coat—Aredhel did not feel him go but felt the cold absence he left behind. Then Julian hoisted her to her feet, and led her back down the pier. He let her keep the coat. It was too big, but it was warm, and the high collar (Aredhel hoped) hid some of the shame on her face as he took her back into the city.

She felt like an idiot—like a fool. Had she imagined his eyes on her? Perhaps he was charming and flirtatious with everyone he met. How often he had held her hand—but then again, had he not also reached for his friends? Clasping hands, embracing. She should not have assumed anything, and now she had made an imbecile of herself in front of the one person who had pledged her his help. Her beaten heart sunk into her stomach. _‘Tell me when you’re sober,’_ he had said, but Aredhel was so embarrassed she did not know whether or not she would be able to look him in the eyes come morning, never mind speak to him.

But she was as weary as she was ashamed—it had been a long day on her feet, filled with excitement. Lost as she was in her dejection, she failed to notice how Julian held her close, an arm secure around her back to catch her should she trip or stumble on the uneven cobblestones.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 3/3/19- updated with suggestions by my beta PumpkinPillars (see announcement in chp. 5)


	5. shakes the day unstable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: JSYK, someone drops a c-word, if that is gonna ruffle anyone’s feathers.

When she opened her eyes, dust motes danced before them in amber light. But the color of it was all wrong— _ ‘The morning is pale and cold, not golden.’— _ and Aredhel sat up with a start, the bedframe groaning beneath her. 

Immediately, she regretted it. Her head swam with yesterday’s drink, and the room like it was spinning around her. Dizzied and  nauseous, she gave up trying to guess where she was. The bed beneath her was soft, the pillows clean, and when Aredhel hid her face among them (shying from the amber light, too bright) that was all she cared about. Breathing slowly, she willed the ache in her head to recede.

Not long was she left to recover, however. No sooner had she laid down her head before something wet and rough curled around her cheek, and then right into her ear. 

To her credit, Aredhel did not cry out. But she did open her eyes and shoot upwards (flinching as she did) before looking wildly around her for whatever moist thing had seen fit to shove itself in her face.

Two honeyed eyes stared at her from the side of the bed, watching her every movement with patient curiosity. It was a dog, Aredhel realized, but unlike any dog she had ever seen in Nopal. Those were lean and athletic creatures, who spent their days chasing vermin and romping with children.  _ This _ dog looked so old she was not even sure it was capable of running, never mind chasing anything. It was wrinkly all over, and it possessed little of the excitable spirit she’d seen in other dogs. 

Still, when she met the dog’s eyes, its tail began to wag. 

Despite her hangover, Aredhel grinned. “Hello, friend,” she said, voice still hoarse from (she guessed) too much vodka and too much raucous conversation, shouting to be heard over the din of the tavern. Fighting through the ache of the drink in her limbs in her head, she swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. Immediately the dog stepped closer, as if it had been waiting permission. Then, it plopped its warm head on Aredhel’s thigh, and stared up at her, beseeching.

Aredhel laughed lightly, then scratched the dog behind her ears. At once the dog heaved a sigh of contentment, and relaxed against Aredhel’s leg.

But whose dog was this? And where was she? 

Wherever she was, she did not think she was in much danger. In her experience, bad people did not keep pets that grew to be so friendly and unafraid as the dog at her side. But that hardly told her where she was, so she looked around her once more to better appraise her surroundings.

It was dim, this room in which she found herself. All the sunlight filtered into through three tall and slender windows; their amber-colored panes gave the room its golden glow. The room was small, sparsely furnished, and largely uncluttered save for a desk that had been pushed against the opposite wall from the bed. All around the desk were scattered stacks of books—not nearly as many as Asra kept in Nopal, but still quite an impressive collection. Books did not come cheaply, and so their presence in a humble home like this meant something: that the person who lived here valued knowledge, possibly even above their own comfort. Aredhel approved.

Atop the desk was more books, folios, and sheaves of parchment, along with a set of scraggly looking quills and upset inkwells. More parchment had been tacked to the wall above the desk; some of it was covered in text, utterly unintelligible though it looked, but most of the parchment was covered in drawings of ravens.

Ravens. The Rowdy Raven.  _ Julian.  _

Just like that the night came flooding back to her in its entirety: the pickled tomatoes, Julian’s friends, the many ( _ too _ many) shots of vodka, the vielle. His bare wrists. 

The docks. 

Aredhel groaned quietly, and felt the urge to lie back down and bury her head beneath the pillows in shame. The dog at her side looked up at her (Aredhel fancied she looked almost concerned) but quieted down when Aredhel continued to scratch the dog’s head. 

The docks—her memory of the docks was fuzzy, more impressions than anything, but she remembered enough to feel deeply, piercingly embarrassed. What had possessed her to act so foolishly? Whatever else he may be, or pretend to be, or behave like, Julian was her only ally on Vesuvia. As long as she stayed within the city (and it seemed that she had decided, without ever really formally deciding, to stay, at least for the present; to believe in Julian, to let him help her, at least for a time) she needed him. She should not have risked his help over girlish notions like  _ ‘romance’ _ and  _ ‘fate,’  _ and whatever other such nonsense had filled her head and heart while she’d watched him make music with his too-beautiful hands. 

She had been lucky, if she remembered correctly—Julian had rejected her with more kindness and grace than she probably deserved—but still the humiliation of it was hot on her. Her pride was so deeply wounded that for a minute she considered leaving town anyway, right now, just so she would not have to face him again. But she weighed that choice the more cowardly of the two. Although her confidence had taken a hit, it would not permit her a weakness so abhorrent to her as  _ cowardice _ in response to defeat. 

But then—what after that? Aredhel fought to remember. After the docks, Julian had led her away, back into the city. She had thought they were going back to Mazelinka’s… but looking at the disordered chaos on the desk, and the drawings on the wall, Aredhel realized: Julian must have taken her back to his own flat instead. 

Two and two added up in her head. Her stomach sank.

_ ‘I’m in his bed.’ _

She flushed like a virgin, cursing herself even as she did it, knowing it was unbecoming of her. She was in his bed—and what of it? She had shared a chaste bed with Asra for years. Just because she had slept here, that did not mean… after all, he had rejected her. Hadn’t he?

Without taking her hand from the dog’s head (she did not think the dog would stand for it) she turned and stole a glance at the wide bed behind her. She breathed a sigh of relief. Beside her the bed was undisturbed, the pillows fluffed, the sheets tucked neatly. She had slept alone. 

(A relief, not to find him beside her, she told herself. A relief, and not a disappointment.)

Well, he was not here, but she would have to face him sooner or later. Beside the desk was a doorway, draped over with a thick curtain, but if Aredhel strained her ears she thought she could hear noise beyond it. She sighed, stretched her toes, rolled head head around her neck, and then smiled at the dog. 

“What do you think? Should we go find your master?”

The dog wagged its tail. Aredhel set her feet on the cold floor and stood. A wave of nausea came over her, but she fought it, steadying herself. The dog bumped its head against her thigh… though whether this was meant to encourage her or demand more affection, Aredhel could not say. She steeled herself, then crossed the room and passed through the heavily curtained doorway, and into the light. 

At once she recoiled. The dimness of the bedroom had been a mercy; here, in the kitchen, the morning light came strong and bright. It felt like knives being driven through her temples; Aredhel shrank from it. 

In the red darkness behind her eyelids, she heard Julian’s voice. 

“You’re awake! And I see you’ve met the lady of the house, Brundle.”

Aredhel blinked. The brightness still smarted, but her eyes adjusted, and she found she could endure it. The dog—Brundle, presumably—had left her side and was trotting across the room to where Julian stooped, offering her some bit of table scrap or another. He gave Brundle a gentle pat on the head as she took the food from him, mumbled something affectionate in Nevivon. 

The first room of the apartment was not much bigger than the bedroom, but a couch of improbable length had been pushed against the wall. Julian’s coat was upon it, bundled and wrinkled, as though it had been balled up to use as a pillow. 

‘ _ This is where he must have slept, _ ’ Aredhel realized, ‘ _ without so much as a blanket to cover him. _ ’

Julian stood, and followed her eyes. “Ah. That.”

Mere moments ago she had been relieved (or, torn between relief and a disappointment she refused to acknowledge) to find he had not crawled into bed beside her, but now she could not stop the words from coming out of her mouth: “You needn’t have done that, Julian. It couldn’t have been comfortable.”

“It was no trouble!” he replied, hurriedly. “After all, you slept in the hole night before last. And now we are in my home, so you are my guest, and it was the hospitable thing to do, especially after… well.” 

Julian turned a shade pinker and left the thought unfinished, but Aredhel could more or less fill in the blanks. She had to fight to keep the color out of her own face. 

Then Julian cleared his throat, and forced a smile. “I was restless, anyway. Knew I wouldn’t sleep much—that’s not unusual, nothing to do with you. But enough about me. How did you sleep?”

“Like the dead,” she said, with a smile that was only slightly sour. “Your friends drank me under the table.”

“Ah.” Julian’s eyes skittered away from her, and he began to fidget, his thumbs picking at his fingertips. “Yes, I am—I’m sorry about that. I should have kept better track of how much you were drinking, slowed you down—I hope you don’t think I meant to—”

Aredhel laughed around the shape of his name. “Julian,” she said, chastising but kind, “it isn’t your job to protect me from  _ everything _ , hangovers least of all. So far you have kept me safe from the guards looking for me—that is more than enough.”

He did not look the slightest bit convinced. His lip was pulled between his teeth, worrying it something awful. “If you say so, Aredhel,” he said, brows knit together. He fought some private war within him; when he spoke again, it was as though his words had broken through a line of defending soldiers to reach his lips: “Still, can I—will you let me try something?”

“Try what?”

Julian smiled, a bit sheepish. “Please don’t be take this the wrong way, but you look awful. You’re so hungover you can barely stand up straight. I might be able to help.”

Was her weakness that obvious? Aredhel grimaced. Still, she wasn’t stubborn enough to refuse his help; if she could be rid of her aching and her sensitivity, she’d gladly cast it off. “Sure, yeah. I’ll give anything a try.” Better than the room spinning beneath her; better than puking her guts out all over Julian’s floor. 

“Great! Good. Thank you,” Julian said, beaming at her. Aredhel thought it a bit ridiculous that he was thanking  _ her _ and not the other way around, but before she could say as much, he gestured to a small table, set for two. “Sit?”

She did, and even the subtle impact of her ass on the seat sent a wave of pain through her. She steadied herself, focusing o the wood grain of the table until the silverware stopped dancing in her vision. As things stilled, she took it in: Julian had laid out a crust of brown bread, some butter, honey. A plate of fruit, sliced carefully to exact thickness. In other words, foods that would be easy on her stomach, and help her replenish herself. 

_ ‘And all this after I came on to him,’ _ she thought, bitterly.  _ ‘I am unworthy of his help, his kindness—’ _

“Aredhel? Are you okay? Can you turn towards me?”

His voice dragged her from her self-flagellation. Julian sat close, looking at her intently. Aredhel’s heart leapt into her throat when she noticed that he had taken off his gloves; they lay, discarded, on the kitchen table. 

“I’m going to touch you,” he said, slowly, raising his naked hands to her face. “If anything hurts, if you get uncomfortable, just let me know and we’ll stop, okay?”

_ ‘What if I am already uncomfortable?’ _ Aredhel thought, panicking.  _ ‘How am I supposed to tell him that all I want are his bare hands on me, his skin on my skin—but after last night I am uncertain that I can bear it?’ _

But bear it she did, breathing shallowly through her nose, fighting the hitch in her breath when his fingertips brushed her temples. Then his fingers pressed more firmly, tracing slow, tight circles on her skin, making his way from her temples over ears, around her head, to the base of her skull. 

His face was so close—his grey eye so focused on her, filled with her, with bringing her comfort—her pulse raced, and she was nearly certain she was blushing. But… his touch calmed her, rather than excited her, expert (she supposed) as it was. Under the ministrations of his fingers her breathing slowed, and her eyes slipped closed; the tension went out of her muscles, and the ache in her head receded. A tingle of base animal pleasure ran down her spine—she had always loved it when Asra played with her hair, or scratched her scalp—and she found herself melting in Julian’s hands. She felt relief, warm and cool all at once. She felt like she was glowing from the inside out. 

“There,” Julian said, and pulled his hands away. “Any better?”

Aredhel was slow to open her eyes, still a little dazed by whatever Julian had just done to her. She had the presence of self, at least, to be awed; she considered herself well versed in healing magic, but neither Asra nor his books had ever taught her anything like that. “How did you  _ do  _ that?”

Julian colored at the praise in her voice. “I was a doctor, remember?” he asked, running a hand through his hair, careful not to upset the tie that kept his eyepatch fastened. “I’d hardly be worth my salt if I couldn’t help you through a hangover. It’s just science. Pressure points and all that, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” she replied. “But I’d like to. Can you teach me?” she asked, lifting her hands to his head. “You drank, too.” And he looked unwell—pale, and like he hadn’t slept very much at all. The skin under his eye was purple as a bruise. 

Julian caught both her hands in his before she could close the space between them, and squeezed them in reassurance. “That's very kind of you, Aredhel,” he said, guiding her hands to the table. “But I’m alright, really. I’m okay.” Then he nodded at the food on the table. “You should eat. Your stomach will thank you.”

As if it had been waiting for someone to make mention of it, her stomach drew attention to itself with a loud rumble. Now that her hangover had been eased, and her nausea lessened, Aredhel realized how hungry she was. With hardly more than a second glance at Julian, she tore off a great hunk of brown bread and put it right into her mouth, too impatient for her first bite to butter it. The feeling alone of food on her tongue wakened her, brought her back to herself. 

She ate with gusto, and more than her fill—drizzling honey over thick slices of moist bread, filling her mouth with bright summer berries—but Julian hardly touched anything. He sipped his coffee gingerly, and only occasionally took a bite of a slice of bread he had buttered then promptly lost interest in. 

Mercifully, Julian was quiet—he did not distract her from her eating with conversation. She had never known him to be so quiet, and for the first time since she’d met him, she realized she did not feel the weight of his eyes on her. Rather, it seemed he looked at everything  _ but _ her: into his coffee, at his untouched bread. He would scratch his temples and peer idly out the window, a faraway look on his face. 

_ ‘I have pushed him to that remoteness,’ _ Aredhel thought, bitterly. She had asked him for intimacy, though she should not have done so, and in response, he had pushed her away from him, and then farther. It might have hurt her had she not been so ruled by her hunger, her wakening body. She ate, and resolved to wrestle with her sins and her shame when she was sated.

But when she had her fill, she found she could not broach the subject of what she’d said at the seaside. The words were too thick with emotion and got caught in her throat, sticky with honey and the fruit he had sliced for her. For now, she swallowed those things—her questions, her apologies—and chose to speak instead of practical things. 

“Thank you for breakfast. Again.”

Julian made a distracted gesture. “It was nothing,” he replied, his eyes turned down into his mug. It was long empty; he was not even holding it. His hands rested on his knees, flexing into fists and relaxing. “I didn’t have to cook any of it. For which we should both be thankful.”

Aredhel laughed, but the sound was too thin, and a little uneasy. She could not read Julian’s face: he sat in such a way that he was staring out the window, and with his face in profile, she could only see the line of his jaw, and his eyepatch. His feelings hid from her on the side of his face she could not see.

Click of toenails on tile; Aredhel turned and saw Brundle trotting towards her. She almost fancied the dog had sensed her distress and come to comfort her, but the rational part of her brain told her Brundle only wanted more scratches. Still, it warmed her—bolstered her—to put a hand on Brundle’s head, and scratch her beneath her collar. 

“Wow. She must really like you,” Julian said, quietly. (And did Aredhel imagine it, or was there something forlorn, too, in his voice?) “She doesn’t usually take to strangers so fast. And you displaced her from her bed last night—I had to fight to keep her from jumping in after you.”

(No. She had not imagined it. Something, somewhere in the space between his words: a gnawing sadness.)

But, “I wouldn’t have minded,” was all Aredhel said in reply, hardly taking her eyes from Brundle’s shiny coat. Without looking at him, she asked, “So what have you planned for us today?”

She stole a glance at him; he was not watching her, but he lifted a brow. “Nothing, other than dinner later, with my sister. I had hoped you might meet Portia this morning,” he said, “but she couldn’t be here. She’s in charge of announcing the Masquerade in the Town Square this afternoon.”

Oh, right. The Masquerade—the big, city-wide party—was being held again for the first time in three years. But Aredhel couldn’t look forward to it, because—based on what Julian had told her—the Countess hoped to see her swinging from the gallows before the party began. 

Aredhel asked, acidly, “Is she announcing my imminent execution as well?”

“No, I wouldn’t think so,” Julian said. “That won’t be announced until—unless—they’ve caught you. Otherwise it will be too great an embarrassment, to promise a hanging and then be unable to produce the condemned criminal in question. But Aredhel, I won’t—”

“—let that happen?” she finished for him. 

Julian heard the bitterness in her voice, and frowned, but did not press the subject. Fingers looking for something to fret with, he took ahold of his gloves. 

“Nevermind all that,” he said, softly. “It’s a beautiful day, if you can bear it now. It would be a shame to waste it.” He pulled one glove on after another, stretching his fingers before his hands fell to his knees, tapping out a nervous rhythm on them. He sat up straight. 

“I thought maybe we’d get out of the city, today;” he said, a glint of fool’s gold in his voice, counterfeit brightness. “We could take a picnic out to the fields west of the city. No one would find us there, so you wouldn’t have to magic yourself. I can’t cook worth a damn,” he said, wryly, “but I do pack a mean picnic basket, if I may say so myself. Though perhaps, after last night, I’ll leave out the wine.”

The fields… Aredhel had rode into the city from the west. She remembered the city sparkling at the seaside like a jewel, and the comforting familiar smell of the beast, the rich wet cool of the dawn among the wheat, and—

“The forest,” Aredhel said, half surprised at herself. “The one outside the city, beyond the fields—what do you know about it? Can we go there, instead?”

The beast had warned her against it; he had told her there was a presence growing in the woods. But Aredhel had felt so  _ compelled _ by it. Now that she thought on it, she did not think it was only the green scent and the shape of the trees that had called to her. Something in the forest had reached for her, whispered. She had been half-asleep, but her magic had felt it. On her own, she probably would not have tried to investigate, but maybe, with Julian….

“The forest,” repeated Julian, rolling the word around in his mouth, clearly intrigued. “How very gothic. I haven’t been out there—at least, not in a long time. Why does it interest you?”

Aredhel considered lying to him but dismissed the notion just as quickly. “I have heard there is something in it, a presence. My magic can… feel it, sort of. It may be a ghost. It may be nothing.” She added, emphatically and seriously, “It may very well be dangerous.”

But Julian only grinned in response, delighted. “It sounds like an adventure,” he said, leaning towards her eagerly. “And danger has  _ never _ dissuaded me from an adventure, dear Aredhel.”

Her ears burned at that— _ dear— _ but Julian was no longer paying attention. He had leapt to his feet and was already clearing the dishes, wondering aloud, merrily, about the trouble they were about to get themselves into.

  
  
  


The after-effects of the alcohol had kept Aredhel overlong in bed. By the time she crossed the city gates with Julian, her glamor shimmering on her to conceal her from the gatekeepers, it was nearly midday. She dropped the glamor as soon as the tall wheat swallowed them. As they mounted the hills, the sun followed them, arcing west. They would have little time in the forest, once they arrived, but nothing could be done about this: Aredhel was not going to risk staying under the trees after they had lost the light. 

Already the forest sat on the horizon, dark with secrets, as though the sun did not touch it. Rather than fear, however, Aredhel felt only excitement. Her heart fluttered in her chest as she remembered how it felt to lay eyes on it for the first time, the great green pillars towering in the dawn. She wanted to see it—wanted to feel the cool shade, the soft ground, the growing of small, fragile, beautiful things. If she was honest with herself, Aredhel didn’t know whether she really wanted to find the mysterious ‘presence’ or not; if they didn’t, it would only mean she could spend her time wondering all the marvelous life around her. 

If Julian was intimidated by the journey that lay ahead of them, he did not show it. As they crossed the fields towards the woods he traded delighted, mischievous glances with Aredhel, and they took turns making guesses—each one more ludicrous than the last—of what they would find in the forest. (A poor soul who died with only one stocking on his feet, still looking for its twin; a pirate to whom Julian still owed money; a gluttonous child, looking for one last bite of tea-cake before passing on to the next world.) Julian made danger into a thing to be laughed at; Julian made Aredhel feel brave. 

Still, there was something new in the way he spoke to her now, something taut and strained where it hasn’t been before… but perhaps she was imagining it, projecting. She ran her fingertips gently against the wheat stalks as they walked, and tried very hard not to imagine what Julian would look like lain down in the field, all thatched gold haloing his cream skin, warmed by the sun, and his fiery hair under the big blue sky, his cheeks pink….

_ ‘Of all the things to be thinking about,’ _ she scolded herself, firmly, time and time again.  _ ‘This is unbecoming—it’s disrespectful. And this is no time at all to be overcome with infatuation.’  _ But the picture kept coming back to her: Julian smiling up at her among the rumpled, sweet-smelling grain, beckoning her to lay beside him... on top of him.... 

Thankfully, her immodest lust waned as the trees grew taller in her vision. It was replaced by a different kind of hunger, a yearning for hands sticky with pine sap and soft, cool earth beneath her bare feet. The sun had eclipsed them, and it thrust the tree-shadows across the fields towards them, as though the darkness was grasping for them, beckoning them. When they had passed between the first line of trees, Aredhel was filled only with the sight of them, her wonder at them.

She had come across the desert and the plains to her forgotten once-home, hoping that—by visiting the clinic of her nightmares, by wandering the city streets—she would find her way back to herself, trace her old footsteps and feel some sense of familiarity, of belonging. She had not. But this, now—wandering between trees taller and stronger and more ancient than temple pillars—felt natural. Felt  _ right.  _

“Julian,  _ look _ at them,” she said, rich with feeling. She pressed her hands to the rough bark of the nearest tree, relishing the texture of it beneath her palms. It was so wide around the trunk that she would have been unable to circle her arms around it.

“I see them,” Julian said, smiling. “They are trees.”

“But such magnificent trees!” she exclaimed. “Nothing like this grew by my house, in the desert. They must be very old, I think, to be so tall.”

Wonder held her; she forgot the beast’s warning entirely. Every long limb and mossy rock enchanted her, until even the shame of Julian’s rejection at the docks could no longer lay claim to her. She stooped to look at every lichen, every fungus that grew in this part of the world so rich with moisture, so near the sea. She looked only at the trees—and regarded them with such intensity and joy that she missed entirely the fond way Julian watched her as she did.

“Do you know anything about them? These kinds of trees,” he asked her. 

Aredhel shook her head. Asra’s books on herbology mostly focused on healing herbs and and roots—they had not had any books on dendrology. She recognized some of the wildflowers, and could identify several of the mushrooms species, but she had no name for the trees they passed. 

“Would you like me to tell you about them?” Julian asked, offering his arm. Aredhel took it without hesitation. 

Side-by-side they walked, deeper into the forest dark. Each new species of tree they passed, Julian named, and gave their uses in turn. “That wood makes the best boats, but only if you’re sailing on freshwater.” “You can chew the bark of this tree to cure vertigo, though the taste of it is terribly tar-like, and a little salty.” “The sap extracted from this tree in winter is boiled and reduced to make the finest glue—strong as iron—but will dissolve the bond with a little lemon juice. Very useful.”

They came upon a clearing dominated by a squat, sprawling tree. Its limbs reaching across the open space to soak up all the scattered light. It’s bark was smooth and grey, and among the shining green leaves sprung patches of white: clusters of five-petal’d blooms, their faces tilted to the sun. 

“And  _ this _ magnificent specimen,” Julian said, gesturing emphatically in front of him, “is often called a Willow-wish, though it isn’t really a willow at all. But in folklore it’s often said the red fruit can be used to make a very powerful love potion, and it gets its name from those stories.”

Aredhel’s brows pinched together. She didn’t want to contradict him, but.... “No, it isn’t,” she said, freeing her arm from Julian’s and stepping closer. She ducked beneath the nearest branch, into the cage of fat, low-lying limbs. Her eyes regarded the tree’s thorns warily; some of them were nearly as long as her thumb. But the thorn’s presence made her all the more certain.

“It’s a hawthorn,” she called to Julian, who was stooping beneath a branch to follow her. It shook as he disturbed it, loosing a cloud of small white petals over his head. “You can tell by the flowers, and the—well, the thorns. Why did you think it was a—what did you call it, a will-o-wisp, or—”

Then it struck her: the increasingly exotic and bizarre sounding names of the trees; the wilder and wilder explanations for what practical uses they might have. 

“You were making it all up,” she said to him, in accusation and wonder both.

Julian bit his lip, trying (and failing miserably) to hold back his devilish smile. 

“I was making it up,” he confessed, bending once more beneath another branch as he approached her. “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you.”

“Julian Devorak!” she exclaimed, halfway between scandal and delight. “You are a better liar than I gave you credit for.”

“Not really,” Julian admitted. “I can’t lie to save my life, not when it matters. This was more like… embellishing. Storytelling.”

“Acting?” Aredhel asked, with a quirked brow. 

“I did tell you I was good at it,” Julian said, with a grin. Then, more humbly, he said, “I am sorry, though. I’ll make it up to you: if you like trees so much, then I will take you to Hjallnir, when all this is over.” 

He had reached her side; he gestured widely with his hands, as though tracing a distant horizon. “Giant oak forests, far as the eye can see, blanketing the shoulders of the fjords. There are types of trees there that  _ only grow in other trees,  _ lichens as colorful as the painted mesas in Coron _.  _ Mist rising off the water and up among the trees… and it is far enough south that, at night, you can see the colored lights in the sky.”

He was spinning yarns, again— _ embellishing _ . He had to be. They had just met, and Aredhel was one wrong step from the grave; he could not be talking seriously about seeing the world with her. But—and this twisted her insides fiercely—she  _ wanted  _ to go with him. She wanted his offer to be real. Torn between sense and desire, all she could manage was a forced laugh. “I just got to Vesuvia. Should I leave it so quickly?”

Julian’s eyes glittered. “Why would you stay, when there is so much  _ world _ to see?” 

“Why have  _ you _ stayed?”

The question struck him silent, wiped the mirth from his face. A distance—that same remoteness she’d observed in him over breakfast—came back into his gaze. “I didn’t mean to stay. Didn’t really choose to,” he said, quietly, turning his eyes away from her and out at the woods. “I’ve wanted to leave… oh, for the past couple of years, at least. Maybe longer.”

“Well, then, what were you waiting for?” Aredhel replied, folding her arms over her chest. “Why haven’t you left?”

Julian blinked. His eyes avoided hers; faint color rose in his cheeks. “It-it’s not that easy, Aredhel,” he said, half-stumbling over his words. “Believe me, I  _ dream  _ about—about going away, seeing…  _ everything _ . Having adventures, like I used to. But I just—can’t.”

There was both shame and frustration in his voice, and he turned away from her. His hand smoothed over his chest, as though he were feeling for something beneath the fabric of his uniform. 

“I am… weaker than I like to admit,” he said, facing away from her, walking in towards the trunk of the hawthorn. “A bit fragile. Have a knack for getting in trouble. I really…” He laughed, bitterly, and cast a glance at Aredhel over his shoulder. “I really can’t take care of myself at all.” 

Then he spun on his heel, folding his arms up tight on his chest, and dropped back against the trunk of the tree with a thud. “Which, I’m sure, is  _ exactly  _ what you want to hear from the one ally you have in the city,” he drawled, wryly. His weight shook lose more petals, which fell to his shoulders and kissed his cheeks as he fixed Aredhel with a grimace. Voice twisted with self-loathing and asked her, wretchedly, “Inspires confidence, doesn’t it?”

_ ‘What is this shame that tears at him?’  _ Aredhel wondered. It was so present it was nearly palpable, the sooty grime of despair and self hatred clouding his aura, darkening the already dark woods. Julian watched at her—waiting—but she could not tell from his glance whether he wanted her to strike him or embrace him, to soothe him or leave him. 

“I’m glad to have you helping me, Julian,” she said. Her arms unfolded, fell to her sides as she stepped towards him. “You’ve been so kind to me. You’ve put yourself at risk to help me, and sometimes just to cheer me up. I’m glad it’s you, and not someone else.”

Julian stared at the gnarled hawthorn roots at his feet. “You don’t know anything about me, Aredhel.”

“And you don’t know anything about me, either,” Aredhel replied tartly. “But so far, we make a pretty good team, I think. Whatever our faults may be.”

It was true; she was not making things up to comfort him. All yesterday they had run into—then away from—the palace guard, and it was only their combined speed and wit that had kept them safe. They were better together; Julian made her braver. Braver, now, too, though she was stumbling over it. What did it matter, if he had spurned her at the docks? Julian was so alive, so vibrant and funny and clever, and she would count herself lucky to be numbered among his friends. Desire trumped sense; she wanted to go with him. Her heart skipped a beat. The words spilled from her lips.

“Ask me to leave with you again, when our business in Vesuvia is concluded. Ask me then, and I will go with you.”

Then she laid a hand on his forearms, and his gaze met hers—and the world shifted beneath her. 

Her face felt hot. How dare he look at her like this? It outraged her; it took her breath away. He had no right to regard her the way a man wandering through a desert looks upon a well, with hope and wonder and a hint of disbelief. Swallowing, she found her throat had gone dry.

“I am not what you think I am,” Julian said, gaze unwavering, a faint note of horror in his voice. “I will hurt you; I am trouble.”

And Aredhel knew by the darkness in his eyes that he was no longer talking about her criminal record, the gallows, her physical safety. He was warning her heart. But her heart, young and foolish and racing like the desert wind, would having none of it. 

“Trouble can be good,” she breathed; she had drawn so close to him now that she did not have to speak above a whisper to be heard. Quirking a crooked smile, she added, “Trouble can be  _ fun _ .”

Julian’s head dipped towards her—her smile wavered—and his lips parted as though he were about to speak— _ or…? _ Aredhel forgot to breathe—when he exhaled she could taste Julian’s breath on her tongue, that was how close he was. He looked not into her eyes, but at her mouth. It was as though she could feel his excitement—that mix of fear and giddiness and brash courage that always comes before a first kiss—and it fed hers; it was as though she could hear his blood singing, like hers, with hers. 

And she thought to herself,  _ ‘Here, with this man about to kiss me—I have never before felt so free of everything I have forgotten.’ _

But, “I’m sorry,” Julian said, and Aredhel could feel his exhale, his words land gently—too gently, for they smote her, broke her—on her cheek. “I can’t.”

It felt like a treacherous shock of cold, someone ripping the blankets from the bed. It felt like being slapped. Before she even fully understood it—before she could overcome her denial—he was gone, edging past her and away from the trunk, back out among the boughs. 

It only took her a moment to pass through her denial, however, and she came out the other side furious and indignant.

She spun. Julian was hunched, his posture bent as if beneath some great load. His back was to her; he was not looking at her. That only enraged her more. 

_ ‘If you will reject me a second time, you ought to at least have the courage to do it to my face’ _

“Why not?” she asked hotly, though she knew why: she was just as much  _ trouble _ as he himself claimed to be, maybe more _.  _ She was a wanted criminal. By most odds she’d be dead before the end of the week, and all the time Julian spent with her until then could be used against him. There were a thousand good reasons why Julian should not simply fall into bed with her—but if that was so, he ought not to string her along with his swooning, his hungry glances, his forehead kisses—yes, she remembered that, from the docks. She knew now she had not imagined it.

Julian’s posture stiffened at the accusation in her voice but he did not turn. Aredhel continued. 

“Last night, on the pier, you told me to wait until I was sober. Well, I am sober now, and my feelings are unchanged. I want you.” There. She had admitted it. Her voice wavered only a little when she asked, “Do you want me in return, or do you not?”

Julian did not answer her. His arm, still braced against the tree, trembled; the tree shook white petal rain. Over his shoulder, he glanced at her; when he spoke, his voice was thick with bitterness, and pain. 

“You shouldn’t. Want me,” he said. “I’m completely unworthy of it, and you deserve better than what I can give you in return.”

That only riled her. “And who are you, to decide what I deserve?” she challenged. 

It was easy, to be angry with him—or easier to be honest, now that she was angry. All her want and yearning spilled out of her, a dammed river burst loose from the structure that bound it. 

“I look at your hands and I think of having them upon me,” she confessed, her own hands moving to the places he had touched her. “I want to hold you, I want to kiss you—taste you—I may well die in the next few weeks but all I want to do before I go is give you what pleasure I can before I lose my chance.”

“Aredhel.”

There was a warning in the way he said her name, but she did not heed it. She stepped closer to him, reached for him; her hand found the small of his back, and he shuddered beneath her touch as she traced the upward curve of his spine. 

“Tell me what you want, and I’ll do it. I want to make you crimson with pleasure,” she told him, hurriedly, breathlessly. “I’d like to pin you to this tree and please you and tease you until you tremble with it—”

“Please— **_stop_ ** _. _ ”

It had the cut of a command, and the sheer pain in his voice had her jerking her hand from him, as she would a hot kettle, as a bare foot from blistering sun-warmed sand. In the time it took her to blink, her anger had abandoned her, and it had left her with no defense against her sadness. 

Softly, more kindly, came Julian’s voice: “You can’t talk like that.”

Hers, smaller, cracking on the words, asking for a second time:  _ “Why not?” _

Julian turned, and his face fell. “Oh, no—no, please don’t look at me like that, Aredhel, I don’t mean to hurt you—”

He reached for her, but she shied from him, pulling away.

“Then don’t hold my hand between yours,” she bit back, venomously. “Don’t look at me the way you do, like you can’t see anything else. You can’t—don’t make me feel this way, the push me away from you.”

He froze, his hands still reaching for her—crooked things, broken birds. His recovery was slow, fumbling. “I—I know, you’re right, but I—it isn’t that I…”

He broke crumpled; back bowed, and his hands curled around his core, as if to protect himself. Then he ran his fingers through his hair, and took a deep breath.

“It isn’t that I don’t find you attractive, or that I mean to play games—Aredhel, of  _ course _ I want you. How could I not?” he asked, and because of the look in his eye—yearning and anguished—she believed him. “For you to… to touch me. To do the things you talked about. You are smart, and funny, and spirited… but I can’t. Aredhel, it would not be right. You don’t know me—you don’t know what I’m like.”

“Then _ tell me _ what you are like,” Aredhel pushed, chin in the air. It was easier to be angry. “Tell me what you are keeping from me, that would make me think twice about wanting you. If you want me to trust you, to let you help me, then you owe me at least that much.”

_ ‘Be honest with me,’ _ she pleaded, more torn up than she was willing to let on; she did not want to give him more power over her than he already held.  _ ‘If you cannot be honest with me now, about this, then what am I still doing here? Why should I stay? How can I trust you?’ _

“For starters, I’m a better liar than I let on,” he replied, face screwed up with self-disgust. “I’ve been lying to you this whole time—from the very beginning.” 

He stood stiffly, as though he were bracing himself against her reaction. But rather than infuriate her, his confession calmed her. At last, the truth. She folded her arms. 

“Let’s have it then,” she said, coolly. “What have you lied about?”

Julian opened his mouth to answer, but no words came. He fidgeted, avoiding her gaze, shifting his weight between his feet. Although his hands were gloved, he still picked at his fingers through the leather. A sigh of defeat deflated him; he shook his head. 

“The clinic, where I… where we met,” he said, slowly, each word carefully chosen. He seemed to gain strength as he went on, grew surer of himself. “When the plague came, it was one of the only ones in the city. There wasn’t much a doctor could do, you see. The plague… it burned people up, from the inside out, usually in less than a few days. In my clinic, I did what I could to make people comfortable, at least—I did my best. And then, one day… the doors just closed.” He swallowed. “People were still… dying in the streets. Scores of them a day. But the clinic was finished. Can you guess why?”

Aredhel shook her head.

Julian’s answer was barely audible, the disgrace in his voice louder than his words. “I ran away,” he told her, then shuddered. He looked disgusted with himself. 

“It got… too hard. And I couldn't—I kept failing, trying to cure the thing, coming up short. So I panicked, and I ran, like the coward I am.” He shook his head; his hands came to cover his face. “I’m not a good man, Aredhel. People needed me, and I abandoned them.”

Aredhel shook her head,  _ no. _ “I don’t believe that,” she said, but her voice had lost its blade-edge. “That is not the Julian Devorak I know. These past few days… all you’ve done is run  _ towards _ danger. You’ve been brave; you helped me.”

“Anyone could have done what I did,” he said, bitterly, dismissively.

“But they didn't,” Aredhel countered. “You did.”

“If I have helped you…” he said, but his voice trailed off. He shook his head again, swallowed the lump in his throat. His eyes grew steely, determined—closed off from her. His hands fell from his face and clenched to fists. 

“If I have helped you, Aredhel, it is because I am  _ trying _ to change. To be better, to do the right thing. But… I’m not there, yet.”

Tentatively, cautiously, he reached for her hands; this time, Aredhel let him.

“I want to help you. Whatever else I want, whatever else I need… helping you comes first, before all that. But that… that gives me power over you. It puts your fate in my hands.” His voice had been gentle, but here it twisted something fierce, a determined grimace on his face, eyebrows knit. “And goddamnit, Aredhel, if I’m ever lucky enough to be with you, that’s just not what I want it to be about. If we’re going to be together, I want it to be as equals.”

“What  _ power _ ?” Aredhel scoffed. “Why am I not your equal now?”

Julian bowed his head, stared at her from behind his red curls, his long lashes. “What if you get bored of me?” he asked, softly gently. “No, don’t laugh—it could happen. Has happened, before. And what then? What if I do kiss you—let you… ruin me, ravish me—but then you decide, as any free woman should be entitled to do, that you don’t want me anymore?”

“Then I wouldn’t be with you,” Aredhel said, as though the answer were obvious. 

“Wouldn’t you? Could you?” Julian asked. “If I was your only help—your best chance at freedom, clearing your name—do you really think you’d feel so free to reject me? What if, heartbroken, I decided to stop helping you? What if I was so upset with you I turned you in?”

Aredhel regarded him, suddenly wary. “You wouldn’t.”

“No, I wouldn’t,” Julian agreed. “But that’s besides the point. Things would never be even between us.  It would make things messy. It would be unfair. I won’t have it.”

“So, what?” Aredhel asked. Her throat felt thick; she felt frustrated, but even as she felt it, she knew her frustration was only a guide for her sorrow. “That’s it? The end—that because you are helping me, we can never—”

Julian was still holding her hands; he squeezed them, then released them, and stepped closer to her. He reached for her; his hand lifted, brushing a stray lock of hair out of her face. 

“I didn’t say never,” he said, softly. “Just not now. Not while we work to prove your innocence.”

“Oh.” 

Aredhel hardly had time to recover. Julian was so close, as close as when he had almost—but not quite—kissed her. She could feel his breath against her skin. 

“Let me earn the privilege of being with you,” he crooned—begged. “Please. Let me prove myself. That helping you—that it’s who I am, now, not just an idea I have of myself, or an aspiration. I need to,” he said, and there was an insistence, a desperation in his voice she did not recognize. 

“I don’t know myself with you,” Julian said. She could feel his hand shaking through his gloves as he cupped her cheek. “I don’t trust myself.”

It sounded like something ripped from a romance novel, and it might have struck Aredhel as trite if it was not a feeling she could identify with herself. More than Julian, she  _ literally _ did not know herself: what she had done in her past, what she was (or was not) capable of. Now more than ever, it frightened her. Yet it was because of that—her unknowable self, her forgotten past—that she was skeptical they had the luxury to wait. 

But she did not push the matter; she knew already what his answer would be.  _ ‘I’ll protect you. I’ll keep you safe.’  _ As she bit back her protestations, Julian took her into his arms. Slowly, tremulously, he drew her body against his  His pulse slowed with hers; they calmed together, and Aredhel put her questions out of her mind. Because, she realized: she trusted him, at last. He held her and she believed all would be well. 

They should not linger long in the hawthorn nest, though, as much as Aredhel would have liked to stay and relish the feeling of Julian’s arms holding her fast. It had grown late, and the darkness over the woods had deepened. Although—strange, that. When they had entered the forest, Aredhel thought they’d have at least three hours of good light; she had either grossly miscalculated the speed of the sun, or the time she had already spent with Julian, wandering the woods. 

Then—a sound. A strange shivering sound, an ominous rustle. 

“Julian, what is that?” Aredhel asked, unable to mask the pitch of fear in her voice. Before Julian could answer, however, the sky beat him to it. 

Wet. On her head first, then her shoulders—then harder, more of it, water soaking her scalp and drenching her clothes. The rain came on so hard and fast that there was no hope for staying dry. One moment the woods had been silent, the next not, filled instead with the rushing sound Aredhel now recognized as each drop of rain striking leaf, limb and rock. Rain, thick and fat—Aredhel had never seen anything like it. She tilted her head back to the darkened sky and felt each drop as it beat at her cheeks. 

Julian grinned at her. “Come on, let’s head back to my place. I’ll light us a fire, and find us some dry clothes.” He slipped his hand around hers, and gave it a gentle tug, guiding her away from the tree. 

He stopped, cold frozen, before he had gone more than two strides. 

“Aredhel,” he said, with whispered urgency, “what is that?”

He was all on edge, all angles; she could hear the fear in his voice. Following his line of sight, though, she saw nothing—just trees and rain, the water a fitful veil. Then— _ there. _ Or, barely there, something white and upright, moving between the trees like a wraith. 

The hair on the back of her neck stood on end. Julian saw it, too; she felt his hand tremble around hers. Despite the cool rain, and the absent sun, she began to grow warm—uncomfortably so. She had to resist the temptation to take off her shawl. 

“Is that it?” Julian hissed. “The... the ghost? Or being or whatever?” Then, more fearfully, “Do you think it can see us?”

It definitely saw them. It was tracing an uneven path towards them, dodging between the trees, but clearly the thing—whatever it was—had them in its sights. 

But they were still within the arms of the hawthorn tree—and though Asra had no books on dendrology, this specimen was familiar to Aredhel, as familiar as the inked oak leaves that circled her wrists. There were older and deeper magicks in the world than any spell she was capable of casting... and more formidable, she guessed, than the near-translucent apparition in front of them. 

“I think we will be safe,” Aredhel said, voice low but steady, “if we stay in the circle of the tree.”

Laughter answered, shrill and amused.

_ ‘Do you really think your feeble Iouernian magic can keep you safe from me, witch? That’s hilarious. The best joke I’ve heard in, oh…  _ **_three years_ ** _.’  _

The voice was slimy, nasally and high, but it had an unnatural quality to it, too—something warbling, something not-entirely-right. Listening to it, Aredhel felt a chill come over her, like a cold egg yoke running down her spine. 

Julian leapt three feet in the air. He spun on Aredhel, eye wide. “Did you hear that?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Aredhel said slowly, hardly meeting his gaze but instead straining her eyes against the rain and the dark. “I heard it.”

_ ‘So long you have been gone _ ,’ the voice reflected, a faint note of arousal in the tone that made Aredhel’s skin crawl. ‘ _ So long I have waited. White flowers won’t keep you from me, now.’ _

Something was happening to her—she felt too warm, unnaturally warm. The muscles of her body were tightening. It shocked Aredhel to realize she was clenching them not in fear, but in hatred. The poison of her loathing felt just as natural, just as right as the trees.

A flash of white in the corner of her eye, but only a flash. A glimpse of a white figure, bipedal… tall. And red. The eyes, she had seen, were red.

Julian looked terrified; she had never seen him this way before. He had laughed at danger, but now he shook, his eye wild as he turned his head this way and that, looking for the creature that taunted them.

Then, burning just as hot as the flame of her new hatred, she was struck by the need to protect him. It was the same urge that had moved her to leave Mazelinka’s house before he woke, to keep him out of her mess—to keep him, she supposed now, away from situations  _ exactly _ like this. Aredhel put herself between Julian and the outskirts of the tree, shielding his body with hers, and then began to back him up, very slowly, towards the hawthorn’s trunk.

“Wh-what is it?” Julian asked her, his hand vice-like around hers.

“It doesn’t matter,” Aredhel told him, squeezing his hand back. “We’re safe here.”

_ ‘Aredhel Mooney, the wild clover blown over from Iournia, _ ’ the barely-embodied creature called. With a disdainful sneer, the voice proclaimed,  _ ‘Just because I cannot enter, that doesn’t mean I can’t hurt you.’ _

A crack from above—an unnatural fire. It cleaved a massive, thick limb from the canopy above and sent it hurtling into the clearing, right at the hawthorn tree.

The wind was knocked out of her. Before she even had the chance to shout, to warn Julian about the branch falling towards them, he had swept her into his arms and pressed her against the trunk of the tree, shielding her with his body, his head bowed towards hers. By the time the branch struck the tree, it had gained tremendous speed, and the force of the impact—old wood striking  young and green—shattering it. Splinters and white petals fell around them, and broken bits of branch large enough to, at the very least, knock a man unconscious.

One of them near Julian’s head, far too close for comfort.

A figure appeared—no, a shimmer among the ribbons of rain. It could not come within the hawthorn’s branches, but it reached for her with a hand that looked solid, and Aredhel felt every inch of her skin crawl with disgust. 

_ ‘Come out from beneath the may-tree, Miss Mooney,’  _ it called, honey-sweet, beckoning her with its incongruous hand,  _ ‘and I will let that worthless “doctor” keep his head.’ _

Julian flinched when the creature spoke; she felt his whole body jump at the voice. He was not looking; he seemed determined not to, with his gaze locked on the grey bark of the tree. It was a miracle he had pulled her towards the tree trunk so fast: he seemed utterly immobile with fright. 

His terror—so plain—made her choice easy. For him, she would be brave.

Aredhel ducked beneath Julian’s arms, pushed him gently aside, and strode away from the tree.

Julian hissed behind her. “Aredhel, where are you going? You said we should stay—”

“Trust me,” she told him, passing a glance over her shoulder. But what was he to trust in? Aredhel had no plan, no strategy she could offer him. All she knew was the twin flames within her—the twinned instincts, to hate and to protect—and that she could not allow even a chance that Julian would get hurt because of her own fear. 

“Stay in the tree,” she told him, quietly. “It’s safer than he wants you to think.”

Then she stepped into the clearing.

The rain felt harder against her skin without the branches of the hawthorn above her, catching it, slowing it. Nothing happened. From behind her, Julian still hissed her name, but she did not heed him. Instinctively, as she had in the clinic, she called fire to her hand; it flickered, but held, bright and warm even in the rain. 

The ground beneath her was wet, already saturated; mud seeped through her shoes. There was nowhere to stand without being an inch deep in a puddle. The sound the water made as she spun—feet disturbing it, sloshing it—felt loud as temple bells.

“I’m out!” she shouted, in no particular direction. “That’s what you wanted, right? Or have you lost your nerve, you gutless, half-formed fu—”

The ground fell out from beneath her—and the air went from her lungs. 

Darkness closed over her vision. Blindness. Rain sound, and Julian shouting. 

“ _ Aredhel! Aredhel! _ ”

Were her eyes even open? She shook her head, trying to clear her vision—and that is when she realized that she was not standing but floating two feet off the ground, pinned to the trunk of a tree by a hand at her throat. Her vision swam—she could not breathe. But she could make out, for the first time, the shape of the creature in front of her.

It was a goat—it was a man. It looked like the Devil in her Arcana—but such a being would never trifle with her, and anyway, the thing in front of her (massive though it was) still looked neither powerful nor strong enough to be the Devil in the flesh.

But that—there—in its eyes was a malice, and a recognition. A hatred that answered her own, and it was though hers burned all the brighter to see its equal in the eyes of another. 

She would have spat in the apparition's face, if she could gather the strength to do so, but with the hand on her throat she could barely breathe. 

The goat—the ghost?—grinned.

_ ‘Ohhh, Miss Mooney, I can touch you just fine,’ _ the creature crooned, pressing its face closer. Aredhel’s vision swam. The arm which pinned her to the tree was furry, flesh—then nothing, insubstantial—then golden and resplendent as brass, then all these things at once, and her mind could not quite wrap itself around it.  _ ‘I won’t be gutless for long. Soon,’  _ it said, and closing its eyes and relishing the word.  _ ‘Soon, I will take back what you stole from me.’ _

Aredhel spluttered for breath, but forced free the words: “And what could I  _ possibly _ have wanted from you?”

_ ‘Don’t tell me you don’t know?’  _ The goat grinned, a hideous and sharp thing.  _ ‘Come now, Miss Mooney. I am not the only ghost in this clearing.’ _

But then it was gone—the smile, the weight of the beast’s eyes on her. A round, sharp stone struck the goat soundly on the temple. It snarled—a sound of that fury filled the clearing, echoing through the trees, amplifying—and turned towards the direction of the projectile.

Julian stood there, outside the grasp of the hawthorn, exactly where she told him not to go.

“Leave her alone, you great brute!”

_ ‘Julian Devorak,’ _ the goat hissed, and Aredhel swore she saw the fur on the creature’s shoulders and neck stand on end.  _ ‘Who did you steal that spine from in the last three years? It certainly can’t be your own—you’ve been a wimp as long as I’ve known you. But fine—have it your way. Die bravely.’ _

He released Aredhel, and she fell to her knees, gasping for air. It brought her no relief. “Julian,” she tried to shout, but her voice was hoarse from the strangling. “Julian, get back to the—”

Too late—faster than Aredhel could blink the creature reached Julian and backhanded him so firmly across the face, his feet left the ground. He  _ flew _ across the clearing. He fell head first; from her place on the ground, Aredhel could not tell whether or not he had snapped his neck. He hit the ground an undignified mess of limbs and did not move.

_ ‘My fault, he’s hurt, he’s not moving—I told him it would be dangerous—’ _ and the words were torn from her throat before she could consider the wisdom of them:

“Leave him alone!” she shouted, her abused throat burning with the effort. “Leave him alone or I’ll carve your eyes out of your skull!”

The apparition turned, grinning cruelly at her.

_ ‘You will, will you?’ _ he replied, in a mocking, sing-songy tone.  _ ‘You are a shadow of yourself, Mooney. A shade. You think I am weak? You’re weaker. You’ve forgotten everything. When I heard you had come back to town I thought you would pose a challenge—but you are nothing. Less than nothing.’  _

His leer widened—Aredhel did not see it. She was focused on Julian’s body, crumpled and face down in a puddle, hardly breathing.  _ ‘Please, please move,’ _ she prayed, unwilling to so much as blink lest she miss a subtle shift of a foot, a finger. _ ‘Please, Julian, please get up _ .’ 

A white hock and a black hoof; a bare foot poking loose from elegant silk trousers. It was both these things. It moved towards her.

_ ‘Even “half-formed,” I can destroy you where you stand,’  _ the ghost said, a dreadful promise in his voice.  _ ‘Why should I wait? I’m ready to come home. Thank you for coming to me, and making my job so easy. It almost—almost—makes up for what a little cunt you’ve been.’ _

A wolf-howl cut through the rain sound, and the hock-hoof-foot froze in its advance. It turned its head towards the sound. The look of childish outrage and petulance almost made Aredhel laugh. Then he turned that look upon her; she steeled herself, and did not shrink from it.

_ ‘DON’T forget me again,’ _ he said, emphatically.  _ ‘The next time you see me, you won’t get away so easily. You think I can’t get in where the world is thin? In the place where you did this to me? I’ll see you soon, Miss Mooney. Real soon. _ ’

Furred hand to muzzle; it blew her a kiss. Aredhel’s stomach turned. Then the white of it faded like mist in the sun, leaving only the hovering red of its eyes—and then that, too, faded. 

It was a trick—probably. Why would a ghost be afraid of a lowly beast like a wolf? But Aredhel didn’t care. She rose to her feet so quickly she nearly stumbled and ran, heedless of ghost and wolf both, to Julian’s side, where she fell, splitting her knee on a sharp stone in the process. 

“Julian,” she said, shaking him. “Julian, please,  _ please _ be alright—”

Then—her heart skipped a beat—Julian groaned.

He sat up, rubbing his head, squinting. Miraculously, he had not been cut; he did not seem to be bleeding at all. The relief was too much for her to contain. Her vision blurred. 

“You scared the shit out of me,” she said, trying to sound angry and failing miserably. Her voice shook. She felt herself shaking, struggling to make out the words. “You weren’t moving—I thought—”

He heard the alarm in her voice, saw it on her face. “Oh, Aredhel—no, it’s okay, I’m alright, it’s okay…” And then, despite how sore he must have been, he wrapped his arms around her and held her against him. She muffled a sob against his shoulder, pressing her face against his mud-splattered uniform. He spoke against her ear. “It’ll take more than that to hurt me. It’s okay. Breathe. I’m alright—you’re alright.”

Her panicked breathing slowed; her heart settled. But Julian stiffened. “Aredhel, we’re not alone.”

She excavated herself from Julian’s shoulder, and turned.

A man stood on the other side of the clearing, a wolf standing at his side. The man was massive—probably not much taller than the ghost, Aredhel guessed, but twice as broad. His clothes were rough, patched wool and leather. He held a satchel in his hand, and Aredhel noticed with surprise that it was much like the protections Asra had taught her how to make in Nopal. 

_ ‘A fellow magician?’ _ she wondered.  _ ‘That may be what scared the ghost off.’  _ She raised her eyes to thank their rescuer, then shrunk. The man was looking at her with open hostility—almost disdain, though she did not know what she had done to deserve such regard.

“ _ You. _ ”

Aredhel startled, surprised. Plenty of people recognized her from her posters, but the feeling in this man’s gaze seemed much more personal. “Do you know me?”

The man’s eyes shifted away from her. “......Yes,” he confirmed, after a long pause, but offered no further elaboration. Then, brows knitting together in something like mild fury, he said, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Well, that much was clear. She’d been in way over her head, until this man had showed up.

Julian was not the least bit cowed by the stranger’s unfriendly demeanor. “I believe thanks are in order, sir,” he called, forcing a cheer into his voice. “And an introduction. Whatever your history with Aredhel, I don’t think we’ve met; my name is—”

“I know who you are,” the stranger said, and shot Julian a glance that shut him up at once.

“I’m sorry,” Aredhel cut in. “I don’t mean to be rude—I don’t remember you.”

“No one does,” the stranger said, closing his eyes. Then, just when she thought he would speak no more, he added, “Except Asra.”

Aredhel shot to her feet. She had her legs beneath her before she realized it was her intention to stand, and took a few stumbling steps towards the mysterious stranger. “You—you know Asra?” Aredhel asked. “Asra the Magician?”

Some of the disdain came back into the stranger’s gaze. His eyes narrowed; his expression soured. “He’s been looking for you for days.”

Master Asra! He had been looking for her after all; she had begun to think he’d given up on her. Well, she supposed, she had not made it easy; she’d been criss-crossing the city since she’d arrived. She grieved at the worry she must have caused him, but she held him in her mind's’ eye—poof of white hair, colorful scarf, easy smile—and she could not help but be glad.

“Where is he?” she asked, excitedly. “Where can I find him?”

The stranger opened his eyes, but he did not look at her, nor did he answer. Instead he watched the wolf, which still stood, patiently, at his side. After a silence, he said, “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the day before yesterday.”

He was great as a boulder; he seemed as immovable as stone. But he moved at surprising speed when he said, “You’ll have to find him on your own. I’m going.”

“No! Wait!” Aredhel called, but the man did not stop. “Please! If you can’t help me find Asra, tell me at least what happened here. Tell me what the ghost is—I know it was you that chased it off.”

The stranger did not stop, taking great, loping strides across the clearing. The wolf trotted amiably at his side. But he tossed an answer over his shoulder: “It’s not a ghost. It’s him. The Count.” Then, as an afterthought, “Or what was left of him, after you finished with him.”

The words hit Aredhel like a slap. “After I…” she repeated, slowly. There was suddenly a great hollowness in her chest where her hope had once lived, and the vacuum tore at her. “So I really did kill him, then?”

“Obviously not,” the stranger retorted, nearly through the clearing. “Or not well.”

“Hey, now,” Julian called. He had risen to his feet. Aredhel rushed towards him—she did not think he should be standing after the blow he’d received—but he strode past her, steps only a little unsteady. “You can’t just—can’t stand there, and accuse the lady of murder, and walk away without giving her any straight answers. Who are you?” he demanded. “How do you know us? What do you know about the Count’s death?”

Julian’s hand reached out, and seized the stranger’s wrist, as if to stop him. But the stranger shrugged him off as easily as a horse shakes off a gnat. 

“Even if I told you, you wouldn’t remember,” he said, dismissively. Then, after a pause in which he seemed to war with himself, he turned and put the pouch into Julian’s gloved hand. “Take this. Get out of the woods. It isn’t safe.”

Aredhel protested. “But I—”

“If I don’t fix the other protections, he may be able to get into town. Go. Now. Both of you.”

And then he was gone, tearing away, each one of his single strides twice as long as Aredhel’s. He moved silently and at great speed, and he moved about the forest like it was his home. They would never be able to keep up with him on foot. 

“Will I see you again?” Aredhel half-shouted after him. 

The stranger did not turn. He spoke so softly that, with the sound of the rain, Aredhel did not hear him answer:

“I hope not.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a very special thank you to PumpkinPillars! I am pleased to announce they are my shiny new beta. My lizard brain cannot pick out all the spelling and grammar errors in my work no matter how carefully I edit, so their help is deeply appreciated moving forward with this story! I already feel like it has made a tremendous difference. 
> 
> (And to those of you who may have offered to beta for me in the past, if you are reading this: please know the decision to not take a beta earlier was not personal. I just wasn't ready for the corrections until now. But I'm finally ready to admit the need for it, especially after rereading some Grave chapters recently and spending half the time cringing when I find typos in chapters I spent more than a week editing. >> )


	6. in the house where they grew you

Rather than lessen the weight of it, the sound of the rainfall seemed only to amplify Julian’s silence as they left the woods. Aredhel wanted to break the quiet, but she did not know what to say.

Even in the fading light of late afternoon, his face still looked unnaturally pale. Julian was white as a sheet, and the deep purple bag under his eye gave him a haunted look. As they walked, he held her hand… but more tightly, and less tenderly than usual. 

Aredhel felt him flinch at every falling branch and every snapped twig, but not once did Julian look back. He only sped her further away from the hawthorne, the woods, and back into Vesuvia. 

Something was upsetting him. He was entitled to that, Aredhel reasoned. It had been her idea to go into the forest, and it had only put them in danger. Aredhel still could not believe his luck, to have been flung across the clearing and land so ugly, and then stand up without so much as a scratch to show for it. She almost wondered if—in those fractional moments when his body had been hurtling through the air, when Aredhel could barely breathe, when her world had seemed so close to shattering—she had not worked some secret, intuitive magic to cushion his fall and keep him from snapping his neck? 

After all, Asra always said most of magic was will, intent. It seemed, anyway, no less wild a notion than the idea that Julian had walked away from such an impact uninjured. Aredhel had been watching him discreetly from the corner of her eye; he did not have even the slightest hint of a limp. 

Maybe that was it. Maybe Julian was all bravado and laughter until push came to shove, and now that he’d seen how dangerous helping her could be, he was having second thoughts. Aredhel wouldn’t blame him. Then again, maybe he was second-guessing himself for other reasons: he had pledged to help her prove her innocence, but Aredhel walked away from the hawthorne with the notion that she was, more likely than not, guilty of the crime of which she had been accused. 

Well, magician though she was, she was not a mind reader. The trees seemed foreboding—each of them a pillar for something malicious to hide behind—but once they crossed back into the field, wheat stalks jumping from the force of the rain that fell from the open sky blushing with clouded twilight, she tugged on his hand and peered into his face. 

“Are you alright, Julian?” 

He jumped at the sound of her voice, and his face had not quite recovered from the shock by the time he turned it upon her. “I’m okay, Aredhel. Just thinking.” Then he added, hastily, as though embarrassed at the time it had taken him to ask, “Are  _ you _ alright? That must have been difficult for you.”

_ ‘Not as difficult as it would have been if you had not gotten back on your feet.’ _

But although she had confessed beneath the white blossoms of the hawthorn to desiring to perform a litany of sexual pleasure on him, this particular emotion—of how devastated she would be at the loss of him—seemed too extreme to express after knowing him for so short a time.

So, “Yes,” she replied. Then, on second thought, because she did not want to lie to him, “No. I don’t know.” How could she? Was she supposed to be glad, relieved that they had escaped unscathed? Or should she still be frightened? Perhaps the wisest thing would be to flee… but now, more than ever, she did not want to run away. 

“What we heard back there, what was said about me and—and the Count, and ‘after I finished with him—’”

She had meant to fall in with her guilt, to cut him loose, to set him free. Julian was having none of it. He cut her off, shaking his head. 

“Don’t even think about it, Aredhel,” Julian said. “If the word of the Countess was not enough to convince me of your guilt, I’m certainly not going to take the word of….”

His voice trailed off, and his face screwed up, troubled. “Huh. That’s odd. I can’t even remember who said so.” His brows knit as he wracked his brain for a name, a description, but he came up short. “Nevermind.  _ Whoever _ it was, what they said doesn’t matter. I told you I’d help you,” he said, softly, gently, “and I will.”

The rain was harder out here, in the field, without the trees above. Julian paused, then pulled his coat off and wrapped it over her shoulders. It wouldn’t do much to keep her from getting wet—it was far too late for that—but it would keep her warm against the coming night. 

“Come on,” Julian said, giving her hand a reassuring squeeze. “It’ll be alright. You’ll see.”

He smiled at her, then turned and led her back through the fields, towards Vesuvia. But his smile, Aredhel observed, had not reached his eyes; worry lines had wrinkled in the corners of his good one. As soon as they began walking again, he resumed his air of seriousness, his silent contemplation. 

  
  
  


There was so much for Aredhel to consider, now. Whatever plans Julian had for how to proceed with their amateur investigation, she was sure they had been scuttled (or, at least, that they’d need adjusting in light of what they’d both just learned.) As they hurried through the fields, then Vesuvia’s gates, then its streets, she tried to come up with a plan of her own. But that was easier said than done. Julian held her hand the whole way back, and as she tried to figure out what next steps she might take, she kept circling back to him: if her choices would put him in danger again, and how she could better protect him for it. By the time they arrived at Julian’s flat, Aredhel had no better answers than when they had left the forest. 

As his flat came into view, Julian’s eye widened in surprise.“Ah!” he exclaimed, smacking his hand to his forehead. “Pasha! I completely forgot!”

The windows of his flat were casting a warm, cozy glow into the dark street. Someone—Portia, probably—was already inside. Aredhel’s stomach dropped; she had forgotten, too. 

Julian’s shoulders slumped in defeat. “Well, no use standing in the rain putting off the inevitable,” he said, and the deliberately injected cheer did not hide the nervousness in his voice. “Let’s get inside.”

Heated rolled out to greet them as soon as Julian opened the door. A cheery fire was burning in the hearth, a pot bubbling in the midst of the flames. A delicious smell was wafting from it, and Aredhel suddenly remembered her stomach. She had not eaten since breakfast. 

“Heya Ilyushka! Just give me oooone second.”

The cheery greeting pulled Aredhel’s eyes to the kitchen. Aredhel instantly recognized the woman standing there as Julian’s sister, that was how strong the resemblance was between them. Their hair had nearly the exact same color and curl. 

“I figured you’d wanna dry your things. It’s was raining cats and dogs out there!” Portia called, using the knife with expert deftness. “I wasn’t sure what held you up, so I just let myself in—I gotta head back to the castle before it gets too late. Brought the stuff to make Grandma’s old summer stew, but no leeks. Hope that’s okay.”

Her hands swept the chopped herbs into her palm, and she turned, making to throw them into the pot—but then her eyes fell on Aredhel, and her smile fell from her face. Her mouth tightened, and her face turned red.

Julian paled. “Pasha, I can explain—“

Portia did not give him the chance. She crossed the room in three strides, seized his earlobe between her fingers, and before he could flinch away, she gave it a mighty tug. 

Julian winced. His sister did not let up. 

“ _ This _ is the nice girl you wanted me to meet, Ilyushka?” she hissed, glaring at him something fierce. “ _ This  _ is the person you want me to show around the palace?!”

Julian’s lip was trembling, his eyes watering. “In my defense,” he said hurriedly, “I didn’t lie.”

Never had Aredhel seen a display of contempt and frustration so perfect as the way Portia rolled her eyes at Julian. She released his ear and set her hands on her hips. 

“No, Ilyushka, but you left the most important part out. You want me to sneak the Count’s murderer into the castle!” Almost as soon as she said it her eyes widened, and she glanced at the windows. With a scowl, she tossed the herbs she was still holding in her closed fist into the stew, then began circling the flat, closing the shutters. 

“Oh, Pasha, if you do that, it will get so warm—”

“Better to have you to sweat and melt like a snowman than have someone see us!” Portia hissed, fastening the latch on the last set of shutters. “Ilyushka, do you have any idea how risky it was—for you and me,  _ and _ for her—to bring me here without warning me?”

“She’s not a murderer,” Julian said, emphatically—and after today, Aredhel thought, not entirely truthfully. “She needs my help..”

Portia cursed low under her breath, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You and your inexhaustible sense of charity. Ilya, you think  _ everyone  _ needs your help—every stray dog, every kid with an upset gelato cone. You can’t help yourself. Even,” she said, her voice thick and close to breaking, “even when it makes you suffer. When it puts you at risk.”

Aredhel watched Julian’s face. He looked genuinely sorry for upsetting his sister, but his resolve was unshaken. “This is different, Pasha.” 

“ _ How? _ ” she demanded. But then the stew was boiling over, and Portia ran back to the stove, cursing her brother under her breath as she did so, for making her lose track of dinner. 

Julian slipped his hand back around Aredhel’s. “Come on,” he says, leading her back into the bedroom. “I’ll get you something dry to wear.”

“You can give her my spare uniform. You don’t have anything to loan her that won’t leave her with her tits out to the night,” Portia called, her back to them, stirring the pot furiously. “But I swear, Ilya, don’t get carried away back there. I need to get back to the palace early tonight—I mean it.”

Aredhel was not sure what Portia meant by her warning, but it caused Julian to blush deeply. Aredhel put two and two together and blushed herself. “Noted, Pasha,” Julian called over his shoulder, before pushing her through the curtain to the bedroom. 

Aredhel turned on him as soon as the curtain fell behind them. 

“Does she really think we would—with her  _ right there _ ?” she asked, pulling Julian’s overcoat off her shoulders. 

“If it’s any consolation Aredhel, I can assure you it has much more to do with me than it does with you,” he said, taking his coat from her. Then he crossed to a trunk at the foot of the bed and opened the lid, rummaging until he came free with a pair of white garments. 

“These are Portia’s,” he said, handing them to Aredhel. “She stays here overnight sometimes, so I keep a spare uniform here just in case. It’ll be a little short on you, but still probably a better fit than anything of mine.”

He pulled another set of clothes from the trunk—a pair of dark trousers and another gauzy white shirt—and headed for the curtain. “I’ll give you your privacy,” he said, and passed back through the curtain. 

Portia shouted from the next room. “Ew, you’re going to change out  _ here _ ?”

“The shutters are closed,” Julian replied. “And it isn’t anything you haven’t seen before. Aredhel hasn’t seen me naked yet,” he teased. She could almost imagine him, nose in the air, fingers perched nobly on his chest when he added, “I’m saving myself.”

“Ha! You? I’m sure she’s already made most of you out. That travesty you call a ‘shirt’ doesn’t hide a whole lot.”

Then Portia’s voice dropped, and she hissed something at her brother, too low for Aredhel to hear. Julian hissed right back. Aredhel sensed they were arguing, but she could not make out their words. She tried to put it from her mind, and began to strip out of her rain-soaked clothes. 

Her mind wandered as she worked. She had been distracted on the walk back from the woods, but now that she was by herself, she found herself thinking of Asra—Asra who was allegedly also in the city; Asra who had failed (as of yet) to find her. Would she see him soon, Aredhel wondered? And what would happen if she did?

The answer came to her immediately. Her Master would want to take her back to Nopal. But for the first time since she had arrived in Vesuvia, Aredhel was finally firm in her decision to stay right where she was. 

Portia—Julian has said she could smuggle them into the castle. Whether she was still willing to do so, Aredhel couldn’t be sure, but she wanted access to the Count’s old wing, if she could managed it, and a chance to visit her old work desk in the library. 

Aredhel did not know what to believe. She did not know whether or not she was guilty of murder, but that wasn’t the question she sought to answer. In the forest, face to face with what was left of the Count, she had felt a loathing of an intensity she had never experienced before. Julian has told her he was a bad leader, and a worse man, but Aredhel did not think that alone warranted the reaction she’d had—her hatred had felt so personal. 

What had Count Lucio done to make her despise him so? She did not know if her old desk held the secret, but it was probably a good place to start. Perhaps, when she found out the cause for the animosity she harbored for the Count, she would realize the only logical thing to do was to finish what she’d started three years ago. 

Though, that might be true, hatred or none.  _ ‘Why should I wait?’  _ he had said, grinning at her with his hand on her throat, darkness closing over her vision,  _ ‘I’m ready to come home.’  _ That meant he was up to something. Lucio wasn’t dead, but he certain wasn’t _ alive _ , either. Death was supposed to work one way. That is what Death meant: irrévocable change. If Lucio had a plan to come back to life, Aredhel was willing to wager that some kind of violence was involved. 

_ ‘No. I can’t leave,’  _ Aredhel reflected, stepping into the clean, dry linen trousers of Portia’s uniform.  _ ‘No matter how good of an argument Asra makes.’  _ She was resolved; she would not return to Nopal. Not yet. 

But how would she explain all of this to Asra? And what did Asra know already? It felt like he had been hiding the secrets of her past from her for three years. The questions from the marsh came back to her. Had Asra known she was suspected of murder? Had that been why they were hiding in the desert? Could her Master tell her whether she was guilty or innocent? 

...would he be disappointed in her? Would he see the posters—hear about the trouble she’d gotten up to since she left in the night—and end her apprenticeship?

A lump rose in Aredhel’s throat. She did not know whether or not she wanted to be found by her old Master; perhaps if she was, it would hurt more than it would help. Nevermind. He would either find her, or he wouldn’t, and in the meanwhile, Portia was waiting on the other side of the curtain. Portia, who might still be able to help Aredhel sneak into the castle. 

But she remembered the Count’s warning.  _ ‘You think I can’t get in where the world is thin? In the place where you did this to me?’  _ Has he been talking about the palace? Aredhel would want supplies before their next confrontation: talismans, incense, anointing oils, things she could use to protect herself so that she did not end up an undignified heap of limbs and gasps the next time they met. But she had about as much faith in her ability to find a magic shop as she had in her ability to find Asra. 

Portia’s uniform was altogether too small for her (the pants fell to her mid-calf and no lower; the shirt just barely covered her midriff) but Aredhel was thankful for it. Even several sizes too small, the fabric was loose, and soft… the material was luxurious, servant’s uniform though it may have been. Aredhel tied her damp hair up on top of her head, gathered her wet clothes, and stepped back into the kitchen. 

Dead silence greeted her. 

Whether or not she had interrupted them mid-fight, Aredhel did not know, but Julian and Portia were not speaking to each other. They appeared to be making a point of not even looking at each other. Portia was stirring the pot furiously, and the brightness of the flames made her eyes look glassy, almost teary. Julian was sitting at the table, arms folded, staring determinedly at his plate. 

Aredhel concluded getting Portia’s help would be harder than she’d hoped as she changed. 

The last thing she wanted to do, however, was come between the two siblings. Instead she took a spare pot from one of the kitchen shelves and wrung her wet clothes over it. The sound of water striking the bottom of the pot startled Julian—she saw him jump in his seat at the table—but beyond that reaction, neither brother nor sister acknowledged her, both lost in their own thoughts, stewing over whatever had transpired while Aredhel changed.

Aredhel tried not to let it get to her, focusing on her clothes. When she had squeezed the last of the moisture from her garments, she opened the shutters, flung the rain water onto the street, then drew the shutters closed and took her clothes to the hearth. 

Portia was still standing in front of it, stirring, pensive. When Aredhel approached, however, Portia favored her with a kind smile—Aredhel was struck, for a second time, at the resemblance between her and Julian—before she reached for Aredhel’s clothes. 

“Here, Aredhel. Let me take that,” she said. Julian’s clothes were hanging on a bar in front of the hearth. Portia hung Aredhel’s clothes to dry alongside of them, close enough to catch the heat but not near enough to burn. “You can go sit with him. Dinner’s almost done.”

“Can I help you with anything?” Aredhel asked, automatically. At home, she and Asra had shared the household chores. The instinct was automatic.

Portia positively beamed at her. “Yeah, that would be great! Thanks, Aredhel. Wanna bring me the bowls, and I’ll ladle into ‘em?”

  
  
  


Later, they sat at the table, a steaming bowl of summer stew set out in front of each of them. Aredhel had paid Portia compliments on the dish (it was delicious) and Julian had timidly agreed with her, but other than that the dinner transpired, for the most part, in uncomfortable silence. Julian stared at his stew and stirred it with his spoon, but he seemed more interesting in pushing the vegetables around his bowl than he was in eating them. Portia tried to make polite and friendly small talk with Aredhel, but she asked her questions like, “Do you have any siblings of your own?” They would have been innocuous directed at anyone else, but there was still so little Aredhel remembered. It grieved her to realize she genuinely did not know the answer. 

Eventually they got to talking about Nopal, and the desert, and the tension eased, somewhat. Aredhel could talk easily about the landscape, the food, the delightfully dry heat, and Portia was eager to hear about it. But the longer they spoke about Nopal, the deeper Julian’s frown set into his face. 

Portia cast a glance at her brother, then gave another dramatic roll of her eyes. 

“For crying out loud, Ilya, what is it?”

Julian jumped, and his face colored. “What? It’s nothing. I’m fine.”

“It’s not nothing. You always look like that when you’re biting your tongue—vaguely constipated.” Portia lifted her spoon and jabbed it in Julian’s direction. “Spill it.”

Julian swallowed, and set down his spoon. He fiddled with it a bit on the table until it was perfectly perpendicular with the table’s edge, then set his hands in his lap. When he spoke, he looked not at their faces but at at his untouched meal. 

“I think Pasha is right, Aredhel,” he said, slowly. “We shouldn’t go to the castle. It’s too dangerous.”

The admission inspired completely opposite reactions in the two women sitting beside him. Aredhel’s face fell in shock and betrayal; Portia whooped in approval. 

“ _ Finally, _ ” Portia said, “you’ve come to your senses.”

“I’m not finished,” Julian said, giving his sister a dark look. Then he turned to Aredhel. “It’s not just the castle. Aredhel, I think you and I should leave the city. As soon as possible.”

Now Portia matched Aredhel in disbelief and outrage. “Ilya! You can’t!”

“What are you talking about?” Aredhel asked. She looked at him warily; her body had gone stiff with shock. 

Julian reaches for Aredhel’s hand over the table and took them in his. In his lap, he must have been picking at his cuticles: his nailbeds were raw and bloodied. Now that he had gotten the words out, they kept coming—his pleas spilled out of him—and he gave her that look again like he had in the forest, starved and desperate. 

“Run away with me,” he said, river-rushed on a current rich with feeling. “Like we talked about today—Hjallnir—let’s go. And I’ll keep you safe, and we’ll have such adventures. But we can’t stay here.”

But she had just decided to stay. She had good reasons to stay. As much as she wanted to go with him, to see the world with him, she could not agree to it. “I can’t do that, Julian.”

“Yeah, neither can  _ he, _ ” said Portia through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at her brother. 

Julian ignored her. “You can,” he said to Aredhel, nodding frantically. “We have to. I can’t—I don’t care if it’s cowardly, please, run away with me. We’ll see everything, Chandalar and Iouernia, and I’ll take you to Nevivon, just… please. Please,” he said, squeezing her hands. Softly, he finished, “I don’t want to lose you.”

Aredhel’s throat tightened. If he had asked her yesterday—if he had asked her on the docks—she might have agreed. It was no longer so simple as staying or leaving; Aredhel felt she had a responsibility. Whatever she had begun by returning to Vesuvia, she owed it to herself, and maybe the city, to see it through to the end. 

She turned her eyes down to the table. “I am not yours to lose,” she told him, unable to look him in the face as she did so. “And besides, Julian, this is where your family is. You have a life here.”

Julian released her hands and clapped his on the surface of the table, open-palmed. His spoon trembled from the force of it. His eyebrows knit together, his mouth twisted into an expression of anguish.

“I don’t  _ want  _ this life!” he bellowed. “Don’t you understand? I’m a failure here! Everyone I know—my family, my friends, the people who care about me—they’ve all lost someone to the plague. A sibling, a spouse, a parent. And every time I look at them….” 

His shoulders were shaking; he sighed, but shallowly. His hand came to his forehead and covered his face, already ashamed of his outburst. He continued, “I look around me, Aredhel, and I know—I  _ know _ no one blames me, for not being able to do the impossible. Cure the plague. Save their loved ones. But they look at me and I feel like such a coward. It is unbearable. I can’t go on like this. I won’t.”

The table fell into a shocked silence. Aredhel was speechless. Julian had never behaved like this before. Come to think of it, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him angry. She did not know how to comfort him; she did not know if she wanted to, either, although her heart ached to look at him.

“This city… is too full of secrets,” Julian finished, quietly. “Regrets. And it has taken so much—too much— from me already. Please,” he said, lowering his hand to search Aredhel’s face. “Come away with me, Aredhel, and let’s both be free of it.”

Aredhel felt uncomfortably powerful when he looked at her like that. She did not know what to tell him. She had only just arrived in Vesuvia; it felt silly to tell him it was not as bad as he said it was, and not at all her place to make that claim. She wanted to shake him, to yell at him. He looked like he was in such pain.  _ ‘If it was so terrible for you to be here,’  _ she wanted to say,  _ ‘why on earth did you stay for so long?’ _

Before she could collect herself, however, Julian’s eyes slid away from her. “Oh, no,” he said, mournfully. “Oh, Pasha, please don’t cry—”

Pasha’s bottom lip was quivering; her eyes were so wet with tears they shimmered. “We’re finally together again,” she sniffed, “and you want to  _ leave _ ? A-again?”

“Pasha, of course not, I didn’t mean—“

“ _ No one _ thinks of you like that, Ilya,” Portia insisted, her voice thick, her eyelashes wet. “You want to help people, because you are a good person, but no one expects you to do the impossible. Everyone loves you—”

“You weren’t here during the plague, Portia,” Julian said, grieved. “It’s… you wouldn't understand. Please, don’t cry.”

He could not bear the sight of tears in his sister’s eyes, and the knowledge that he had put them there. Frankly, Aredhel couldn’t either. Portia hadn’t exactly been happy to see her, but already Aredhel was warming up to her. She turned to Julian’s sister.

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, softly, “because we’re not leaving. I’m sorry, Julian, but I’m staying Although…” she said, and added, as an afterthought, “I won’t hold it against you, if you don’t want to help me anymore.” 

Portia’s curiosity beat out her sadness. She tilted her head to the side, watching Aredhel. “Help you what? What were you guys planning?”

Aredhel’s face set, determined. “I’m going to find that ghost again.”

“Ghost?” asked Portia, and she perked up so dramatically that, were it not for the lingering evidence of her wet cheeks, it would be hard to believe she had ever been crying at all. “Nobody told me anything about a ghost. What did you guys find?”

“Don’t get any ideas, Pasha,” Julian warned, then turned to Aredhel, slightly incredulous. “Why would you possibly want to see that thing again? After what it did to you—what it might try to do? Do you  _ want _ to die?”

“Julian, like it or not, he is the most promising lead we have,” Aredhel said, crossing her arms defensively. “He knows what happened. And I think there’s more to it. He said he was getting stronger—who knows what he’ll do then? He implied he could get into the castle, if he wanted.”

Portia squeaked. “He did? What did he say he was gonna do when he got there?”

“He didn’t say,” Aredhel said, “but he’s definitely up to something.” 

Julian had his hands in his lap again; Aredhel feared he was picking at his fingertips. When she reached under the table for them, taking them in hers, her suspicions were confirmed; his nail beds were even bloodier than before. 

“It’s okay to be afraid,” she said, gently. “It’s okay if you don’t want to help me. I won’t hold it against you, after what happened today. But I’m going to look for him, if I can, and find out what he knows.”

“Then you should look in the castle. I’ll take you,” Portia said, decisively, from across the table. Aredhel turned in surprise; Julian cried out as if he was going to argue, but Portia cut him off. “There have been rumors of a ghost—or something—in the Count’s old wing. I always thought it was a story servants told as an excuse to get out of work, but now I’m not so sure. Whatever it is, if you think it could hurt milady, then I’ll help you get in so we can make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“No,” Julian said, his hands tightening around Aredhel’s. “No! Aredhel, he  _ threatened _ you. If you go to the palace you’ll only be giving him exactly what he wants. I want to help you. I don’t want anything to happen to you. But I can’t—I don’t know how to protect you from ghosts.” 

Aredhel smiled at him, cheshire-cat wide. Here, at last, was a fear she could assuage.

“Fortunately, I do,” she said, lifting one of his tangled hands and pressing a kiss to the back of his palm. Julian’s eye widened; he blushed. “I’m a magician,” she continued, with no small amount of pride in her voice, “and dealing with spirits like the Count is part of my training. I can make talismans to protect us, and spells to keep him from touching us. Maybe even something to banish him from the castle. But…” her voice tapered off, and the confidence left it, “I don’t know where I can go to buy the things I need.”

“What kinda things do you need?” Portia asked, brightly. 

Aredhel turned to her, surprised. “Herbs,” she said. “Certain oils—inks. Gemstones, if I can have them.  That sort of thing.”

“Well, then, what about the apothecary?”

At once the hair on the back of Aredhel’s neck stood up though she had no idea why. Julian’s eyes narrowed. “What apothecary?” he asked his sister, the skepticism plain in his voice.

“The one by the bazaar,” Portia said, smiling, pleased to be helpful. “I was just there earlier this week, looking for something to cure milady’s headaches. There’s a big sign out front, with a snake and a mortar and pestle on it? I’m sure they’ll have what you need.”

  
  
  


After some arguing, it was settled: tomorrow, Julian and Aredhel would cross the city and visit the apothecary Portia had described and attempt to purchase the supplies Aredhel needed for her magic. In the meanwhile, Portia would try to figure out a way to sneak them into the castle, something that would be easier, she said, two days from now, when the preparations for the Masquerade would be underway.

Portia left Aredhel and Julian too tired and anxious to argue further. The day had worn them both to exhaustion, but Julian insisted Aredhel take the bed. He had a lot to think about, he told her, and if she slept on the couch he’d only wake her later if he needed to go for a walk to clear his mind. 

The next morning when she woke, she was not alone. Brundle had leapt into bed beside her in the night, and curled as close as she could to the small of Aredhel’s back. As she squinted in the morning light, coming into wakefulness, she scratched the dog’s stomach. Brundle sighed in contentment, then gave Aredhel a look of betrayal when she rose from the bed to change into her own clothes.

When she crossed the curtain to the front of the flat, she found Julian sitting on the edge of the couch, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. He was awake—barely—but did not look the least bit rested. A cup of coffee, already gone cold, sat on the table in front of him. 

A bitter ache went through Aredhel at the sight. All she wanted was for Julian to be safe, and for the burden of his suffering to be lessened. She hoped she was not herself responsible for his lack of sleep, but she was not foolish enough to believe it likely. 

Yesterday's arguments and outbursts hung over them. Combined with Julian’s weariness, it made for clipped and unsatisfying conversation, even if it was effective. There was little food left in Julian’s flat, so it was decided that they would pick something up to eat in the market on their way to the apothecary. Aredhel glamored herself, and they left the apartment.

Julian was pensive, and Aredhel was cautious of the mood—she didn’t like it. After he’d thought overlong yesterday, he’d asked her to run away with him, and she could not imagine what fresh plot he was now turning over in his head.

It was not far from the market stall at which they ate breakfast to the apothecary—Aredhel could see the store’s sign from across the square. It sat half in shadow, but she could make out the image just as Portia had described it: a snake, and a mortar and pestle. 

Her pace quickened at the sight of it. She could feel Julian’s disapproval, his apprehension—it was radiating off him like heat from a fire, and he dragged his steps behind her—but she didn’t care. This, the cobblestones beneath her feet, the sight of the shop sign… it felt familiar. A memory like a coal; a fire nearly smothered, but still warm at the back of her mind. She turned the corner—

And stopped so abruptly Julian nearly tripped over her.

“Aredhel? What happened? What is—oh.”

On this side of the shop, there was a small landing, which led to a purple door. But the space beyond was dark, and in the window hung a sign: 

_ We deeply regret that the Apothecary is closed until further notice. We will resume regular business as soon as the shop owners are able. _

Reading those words knocked the wind out of her. It was just another dead end—it was nothing. That familiar feeling, that feeling of great anticipation… it had meant nothing at all. There were no answers waiting for her around the corner, only more closed doors and dark buildings.

Julian, undeterred, stepped onto the threshold and peered through the windows. “Looks like nobody’s home,” he said, stepping back from the door to get a look at the second floor. It looked to be little more than a loft, judging by the slope of the roof, and its windows were equally dark. 

Julian quirked a crooked grin. “Wanna have a look around?”

Aredhel looked at him in horror. “What,  _ break in? _ ”

“You wanted herbs, right?” Julian asked with a grin and a shrug. “We can leave money for whatever we take, and we’ll lock up when we go. Honor system, like.”

Aredhel hissed at him through gritted teeth. “And how do you propose we get inside?”

She was not sure if Julian was pulling her leg. He did not want to go to the palace, and he’d made no secret that he didn’t want Aredhel to go, either. The closed shop meant the palace was equally closed to them: Aredhel would not venture there without what she needed to protect herself.

But Julian only smiled at her, and it was not triumphant or cruel but warm, and delighted, and proud.

“You made short work of the lock at my old clinic,” he said, leaning casually against the shop’s entrance. “Why is this any different?”

Ah; it was ignorance that made him enthusiastic, not sadism. Aredhel frowned. “That lock was just iron,” she said. It had opened so easy—it had sprung loose at the lightest of touches—but this door, she had a hunch, would resist. Something tickled her senses. She stepped onto the threshold, lifted her palms in the air, and moved them, every so slowly, towards the door.

“Aredhel, what are you—is this a magic thing? Are you doing magic?”

She wasn’t listening; she was too busy reaching. And  _ there _ —she felt it—two inches from the surface of the door: some of the most powerful protection magic she had ever felt.

“It’s not just an apothecary,” she whispered, heart quickening.

“What?” Julian asked, and at once his enthusiasm gave way to last night’s apprehension. “What do you mean it isn’t just an apothecary? What  _ is _ it, then?”

“Give me a second, Julian. Let me think.”

Breaking through magical barriers wasn’t like picking locks. Protections like the one on the door in front of her recognized their casters, and they could backfire pretty easily if they weren’t approached with care. There were repercussions if you messed up. This spell was  _ strong, _ and it was warding against the very thing Aredhel was trying to do: trespass _. _

She shouldn’t try it… but for that familiar feeling. It was stronger now, so close to the magic. It felt like the sound of her own heartbeat. Her fingers stretched the slightest bit forward….

The door swung open. A bell rang; the hairs on the back of Aredhel’s neck stood on end.

Julian recovered quicker than she did. “I knew you could do it,” he said. He put his hand on the small of her back, and shepherded her inside. “Come on, my darling little felon, before anyone sees us.” 

Aredhel did not know whether to bristle or glow at that, ‘darling’ and ‘felon’ inspiring warring reactions within her. Julian shut the door behind them—the bell rang again.

Aredhel cringed. Now that they were inside, the shop bells sounded surprisingly loud. She held Julian close, the both of them frozen, listening. There was a trap door in the ceiling that presumably led to the loft, but no footsteps, nor any sound at all came from above to answer their trespassing. The shop was empty, and there appeared to be no cellar. There were two doors in the far side of the room, but based on the shape of the building they’d seen from the outside, they could only have led to closets. 

“I think it’s okay,” Aredhel said, letting her glamor drop now that they were inside. “We’re alone.”

Indeed, Aredhel wondered how many days it had been since Portia had come here. Nearly a week's worth of dust had gathered on the shop wares. The bundled herbs, however, still looked perfectly fresh—Aredhel guessed they had been preserved with some kind of charm; surely that was within the power of whomever had laid that magical protection on the door—and a quick glance at the shelves around her told her she would have everything she needed for their trip to the palace. 

“Apothecary shop,” Aredhel whispered under her breath. “Yeah, right.” Between the protection on the door and the wares that had little to do medicine, she was sure the shop was more than it appeared. That was all the more reason to get what she needed and get out. Aredhel made for the shelves, hands reaching for anything she thought would come in handy at the castle: wells full of oil, rods of incense, resinous myrrh. 

Julian idled around the shop as she worked. A fringe of talismans hung from the arms of a chandelier like spanish moss; he approached the display dubiously, frown deepening the closer he drew to it. A gloved finger tapped one of the pendants experimentally, sending the whole array twitching fitfully. 

“Aredhel,” he called across the room, “what are these?”

Aredhel turned. But before she could make out what he was looking at and give him an answer, something else struck her silent. 

The closet had opened, and a woman was stepping out of it.

Aredhel could be forgiven for not noticing sooner. Both the door and the woman’s footsteps were silent, and the woman moved with an unnatural elegance. Her face was lightly lined, and her black hair fell to her waist. 

“Asra?” she called, peering into the shop beyond the closet—but then she laid eyes on Aredhel and Julian, and she grew still as a placid pond. 

_ ‘Asra?’ _ Aredhel thought, panicked. It was the second time in as many days she had heard the name of her Master spoken aloud by a stranger. All her unresolved feelings about seeing Asra again bubbled just beneath the surface, but louder than that longing was alarm at being caught.

She was torn between wanting to interrogate the woman before her and wanting to apologize to her, trying to explain away her breaking and entering. The latter impulse won out. “I’m sorry,” Aredhel said, hastily. “We didn’t mean to—I was going to leave money! It was never my intention to steal. But I needed things to make protections. I didn’t know where else to go.”

The woman did not reply. She stared coolly, first at Aredhel, then at Julian, taking stock of the situation. She looked like a feral creature deciding whether to stand its ground, or bolt. Then, with a deep exhale, she straightened, pushing her hair behind her ears. The sharpness had not left her gaze—it was cautious, but unafraid; calculating but not cruel.

“I think you both had better come inside.”

All the while Julian had stood silently, which was not his preference, but he knew it was probably better to yield to Aredhel’s experience and judgement where an apothecary-cum-magician was concerned. But when the apothecary spoke, he wrinkled his nose and furrowed his brow, peering into the closet behind her. “Inside where? It looks tight as a wardrobe back there.”

The faintest hint of a smile pulled at the woman’s lips. “Have it your way, then. But inside is where the coffee is. What about you, Aredhel? Will you come inside, so we may wait for Asra somewhere more comfortable?” She reached out to Aredhel, offering her hand, and there was an impossible grace in the way her fingers uncurled—as if like a bud turning to blossom, petal by petal, lifting its face to the sun.

Aredhel’s throat felt tight; she kept trying to swallow, but couldn’t fight down whatever knot had lodged itself in her neck. There were tears in her eyes but she didn’t know why, and the frustration of that made her want to cry even more. 

She wanted to take the apothecary’s hand; she wanted to run and tear at her hair and throw herself in the canal. And the sting of tears in her eyes was nothing to the sudden ache in her head, at the base of her skull, as though someone was trying to split it like a walnut. 

“It’s alright,” the woman said, the lines around her eyes deepening. “You’re alright, Aredhel. You are strong. Breath slowly. There, just like that.”

Aredhel calmed only enough to speak. “You know my name,” she said. Julian heard the unsteadiness in her voice; in the next second he was at her side, his hands light and reassuring on her shoulders. “You know Asra,” Aredhel continued, watching the woman in the doorway, “but I don’t know you.”

For a moment the woman only watched them. Then her hand curled closed, as beautifully as it had opened, and she lifted it to her chest holding her closed fist over her heart.

When she spoke again, her words came slowly, her voice measured, as though she was testing the impact each one had on the two trespassers in front of her. “I know Asra because he lived here, for a time, with us,” she said. Then, unable to keep the emotion out of her voice, she added, “I know your name because not a day has gone by that I have not thought of you. My name is Brona. I am your aunt, I have raised you like my own daughter since you were ten.”

“Brona.” Aredhel tested the feeling of the name in her mouth. It was hard to sound it past that persistent lump in her throat. She thought of that night at Mazelinka’s house, when she had raised her hand to Julian’s face, and Aredhel had looked on with such envy and longing. The words came to her. “You are the wife of my mother’s brother.”

Brona nodded. “Yes.”

“And he is dead.”

Aredhel knew it was true before she said it. She did not know how she knew, but she knew it as certainly as she knew her own name.

Brona’s gaze did not waver, but her eyes flashed before she answered. “Yes,” she said, clinically. “Albert died several years ago. He loved you very deeply.” She added, as if it was a consolation, “It was before your accident.”

Why did that make her want to cry? She could not have picked her uncle’s name out of a list; she hadn’t the slightest idea what he looked like. Nor could she have recognized this woman as her aunt, even if she had collided with her on the street. Worse, Aredhel did not know if she was more grieved over the loss of her uncle, already many years dead, or the absence of her aunt, who had been as good as dead to her for the last three years.

From her aunt, however, she could still demand answers.

“You know about my accident?” she said, a bite in her voice. Julian’s hands squeezed her shoulders, his thumbs tracing circles on her neck. “Why didn’t you come to visit me? If you loved me so much, why did you abandon me and Asra to the desert?”

Brona held herself at reserve, distant and cold as winter. But when Aredhel accused her—when her voice broke on the accusation—Brona crossed the room. Her hair behind her like black ribbons, willow fronds stirred by an evening breeze. Before Julian could stop her, she had placed a long hand on each side of Aredhel’s face, and drawn her own close. 

Her eyes were the green algae of ancient pools, the moss of undisturbed ruins. “I am so,  _ so  _ sorry Aredhel. I wanted to see you more than anything. But it would have been impossible.” Then she sighed, a breathy shudder like a tree shaking lose its leaves, and kissed their foreheads together. 

“I know that is not a satisfactory explanation,” she said, softly. “Perhaps it is not even a fair one. Please, come into the house, and I will tell you everything I know.”

Then she released Aredhel and crossed the room, back to the closet. 

Aredhel watched her go, shaken. She had felt— _ something _ , such tenderness when the woman who claimed to be her aunt held her face. Of all the emotions she had felt, all the old stirrings within her, the most powerful one until now had been hatred, an ichorous loathing that had filled her at the sight of the Count’s ghost. But this was warmer, and it was far more powerful. 

Julian was shaken, too, but he shared none of Aredhel’s warmth. He waited until Brona was out of sight, then spun on Aredhel, face hardened with suspicion.

“Is she—she’s some kind of witch, isn’t she?” Julian hissed, the same note of fear in his voice she’d heard when he spoke of the Count’s ghost. “How do you know you can believe her? And what—Aredhel, what is she talking about?  _ Inside,”  _ he scoffed, folding his arms. “There is no ‘inside.’ We saw the building from the street. She’ll lure us back there and put a spell on us, mark my words. I know her type.”

Aredhel turned in his arms. “You don’t hold people who do what I do in very high esteem, do you? Magicians,” she clarified, quirking a brow. Then she brought her hands up to his neck, straightened the lapels of his jacket. 

“Julian, I think I remember this place,” she said, quietly. “Not—not totally. There’s something inside of me and it wants to be heard. I think we should go with her. I want to.”

Julian frowned. He pulled off a glove and pressed a hand to her head, as though he were checking for a fever. “That’s exactly what you’d say if you  _ were _ under a spell, isn’t it? Maybe she already cast it. Maybe she bewitched you when she touched your face.”

Aredhel laughed. “I’m not under a spell, Julian. I just—I trust her. And you should trust me. I’m a good judge of character.”

Julian frowned. “Do you have any evidence for that?”

“Well, I went home with you, didn’t I?” Aredhel teased, poking him in the chest. “Even though I had every reason to believe you were a stalker, or worse, with all my old letters in your possession. And you were dressed like a complete rascal, shirt open to your navel.” 

Julian laughed uneasily and went bright red, but Aredhel did not see. She went instead to the closet. “I’ll go first,” she said, throwing a bold grin over her shoulder, “and make sure it’s safe for you.”

“Aredhel, don’t— _ wait, _ ” he cried from behind her, but she was already gone, swallowed into the darkness beyond the door. 

One moment passed. Then another.

Without Aredhel beside him, the shop seemed so quiet—so menacing. The shelves were crammed with bright instruments whose use he did not understand, and the place had a smell—thick, smoky, musky—and it clouded his senses, made him feel weak in the knees and afraid. 

What should he do, he wondered, if she did not come back to him? The noble thing, he knew, would be to follow her. If he was half as good as Aredhel seemed to think he was, he would have followed her already.  _ ‘You are trying to be better. Behave better, more bravely. Follow her!’ _ But for all Aredhel’s confidence about the shop and how right it was, Julian felt the opposite, and his feet would not obey the rational command of his mind. 

There was something terribly wrong with this place. He wasn’t the kind to be paranoid, or suspicious of nothing, but he was sure of it. Something awful had happened here, or would happen—was about to happen?—oh god, was it happening to  _ her? _ “Aredh—!”

Before her name was fully out of his mouth her head appeared at the door, peeking around the threshold, an impossible, face-splitting grin of wonder on her face.

Quickly, Julian tried to seize his composure, to erase any evidence of fright on his face. Mostly, he was just relieved to see her well. “Back so soon?” he asked, quirking a brow in an attempt at nonchalance. “Has she tried to cook you into a soup already? Or drain you of your blood for hexes?”

“She hasn’t tried anything,” Aredhel replied, playfully. Julian did not like the mischievous look on her face. She took his hand in hers, threading their fingers together. “Come on, Julian, come with me. Please? You’ll love this.”

“Love  _ what? _ ” Julian exclaimed, more alarmed than before. It was only Aredhel’s determination (and the strength of her arm) that dragged him towards the closet. “What’s back there?”

“You’ll see,” she told him, in a sing-song tone, and Julian reconsidered; maybe Aredhel was already enchanted, after all. She was  _ too _ giddy. The witch had put a spell on her, and sent her back out to drag him inside, so that neither of them escaped. His mind raced with the possibilities, wondering what pagan curses they would be subject to as punishment for their trespass and theft. He wanted to turn, to run… but he couldn’t leave without Aredhel. He would not abandon her to the clutches of the ‘apothecary.’

It became clear he had misjudged the space of the shop; the closet went further back than he thought. That realization hardly quieted his panic. The deeper the closet was, the more that could be lurking inside of it, waiting to snatch them or separate them. It was so  _ dark _ —an unnatural, claustrophobic darkness—and Julian felt that at any minute something might reach out of it, and tear at his clothes. He kept close to Aredhel, his hand around hers.

“There’s a step here, down—be careful,” Aredhel told him, holding his arm and guiding him down.

But when his feet met the floor, Julian found was no longer in the closet. Or, no longer in  _ that _ closet. Or, slightly less of a closet than the one from which he had come. It was more of a mud room, really, like the small chamber Lilinka had kept between the house and the yard, so that all her children could remove their dirt-streaked shoes and clothes before reentering the house they shared. Only this room was not filled with little boots and jackets and mittens, but lengthy, dramatic cloaks and women’s boots.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” Julian asked, skeptically. “It’s just storage. And where is the witch? Shouldn’t she be back here?”

“Almost. We’re not quite there yet,” Aredhel said, with a grin and a wink. “Just wanted to give you a second to adjust.”

“Adjust to  _ what? _ ”

But then he saw it. There, at the other end of the closet, a pair of double-doors of heavy wood and iron bolts. His jaw fell.

“How…?” he asked. His body was tense, like he wanted to take another step closer but didn’t quite dare. Again he was seized by that feeling of  _ wrongness. _ “Aredhel, I know, I—I’m not an architect, but this seems… too deep. That—that door shouldn’t be there, right? Surely the building does not stretch back so far. Where could it possibly lead?”   
  
Aredhel only shrugged, but she was still looking at him with that devilish smile. “Wanna find out?” 

Julian did not answer, only looked between her and the doors uneasily. So Aredhel stepped closer, close enough for Julian to feel the heat of her body (or, maybe, close enough for Julian’s body to warm at her proximity, his heart beating faster, more violently) as she smiled into his face.

“It’s an adventure,” she whispered. “A good one, I promise. It’ll be okay. Don’t you trust me?”

Did he? Trust her? Where most things were concerned, yes, he trusted her unequivocally. But this…. He remembered the beast in the woods, the way it had lifted her off the ground by her throat, and deep down trust or none he did not want to cross through the mysterious door in the far wall. He still wasn’t entirely sure Aredhel wasn’t bewitched. 

...but at dinner, yesterday, he had told her,  _ ‘I don’t want this life.’  _

He didn’t particularly want one that was filled with magic, either. But he wanted one with her. 

_ ‘Then trust her.’ _

Julian’s face hardened. He was no less frightened, but he was resolved.

“Okay, Aredhel. Let’s go.”

Aredhel grinned, then flung open the door. 

Beyond was not the alley behind the shop, or another darkened room. Instead the double doors opened to green: a wide courtyard, painted in every conceivable shade of emerald. A massive, hunched tree with smooth grey bark and white blossoms dominated the courtyard’s center—a hawthorn. All about its knees were clustered treasures of fungi, mushrooms in colors brighter than gemstones. Little bushes of healing herbs sprouted out of every inch of earth. All of the courtyard was crammed full with green life.

The plants grew so thickly there was no conceivable path through them that would not involve stepping on some precious green thing, but the courtyard was ringed by a wooden arcade. The arches had been tastefully carved to look like tree boughs, echoing the organic shapes in the courtyard’s center. Doors from the arcade led off to the other rooms of the house, and to their left, a set of stairs led to the second floor. This too, Julian could see, led to a landing with a covered walkway overlooking the garden. The edges of the upper arcade were crowded with plants and pots, and ferns and vines and other hanging greenery tumbled over the edges of the pots and spilled towards the mossy courtyard below. 

Above, where the courtyard opened to the sky, heather grey clouds hid the sun. The air was too cool. Whatever he was looking at, it was not the sunny sky of Vesuvia, from whence they had just come, and that unnerved him most of all.

“S-s-s-sorcery,” Julian barely managed, holding Aredhel’s hand tightly. “Witchcraft. Impossible. This shouldn’t— _ how? _ ”

“Magic,” she replied, gleeful. 

“Your uncle’s magic, to be exact,” Brona called, from the opposite end of the courtyard. For the first time Julian noticed the loggia on the far side, comfortable chairs clustered around a fire pit, crackling cheerily. True to her word, there was a kettle already set upon it, steam rising from its spout. 

“Albert built this place for me when we moved to Vesuvia,” Brona continued, turning her face up to the boughs of the hawthorn tree, the incongruous sky above. “He thought it would make us less homesick.”

“Is that where we are? Iouernia?” Aredhel asked, and dropped Julian’s hand to rush around the arcade to her aunt’s side. “Was the closet a portal?”

(Julian felt the loss of her hand so keenly he actually gasped. Then he colored. He was being dramatic, he knew, but when she had released him, he had felt abandoned; alone with his fear. This place did not feel right. He did not know how Aredhel could skip about it so merrily.)

“It was,” Brona answered, pride in her eyes at her niece’s cleverness, “but we’re not in Iouernia. We’re not really anywhere. Just in the house.”

The kettle began to whistle; Brona stooped to withdraw it from the flame. As she made up their drinks, taking care to ask each of them their preference of tea or coffee, Aredhel and Julian settled into chairs around the fire. Brona passed a mug to each of them, then settled to perch on a backless stool beside Aredhel, her spine perfectly straight. 

“Aredhel, I want to apologize to you. I cannot fathom how difficult it must have been, not knowing if you had any family, if anyone was missing you, or worrying for you. But I could not leave the city with you and Asra. I had responsibilities here, patients here, and I was loathe to leave the house your uncle built for me. That was selfish of me. But I also feared that if I left with the both of you, and the shop closed, it would only heighten the suspicion of your guilt.” 

“That makes sense,” Aredhel conceded, frowning into her tea. “But why didn’t you come visit us? You could have closed the shop for a week, spent a holiday with us in Nopal. You said Asra lived here, too—I’m sure he would have welcomed you.”

“I did visit you,” Brona replied, softly. “Twice, actually, in the beginning. But you were very unwell then, and when I visited it only made things worse. Asra asked me to stop coming.”

“Asra did  _ what? _ ” Aredhel asked, scandalized, furious. “I know I was unwell. I know that I—that it took a long time for me to get better,” Aredhel said, turning red, refusing to look at Julian. She had spent, she suspected, the better part of her first year in Nopal listless and uncommunicative. She hadn’t been able to do anything for herself. Without Asra, she would have been lost, but she did not relish the idea of admitting to such helplessness in front of Julian. “Why should that have stopped you?”

“Has Asra told you that your progress—your recovery—relapsed, occasionally, in the beginning?”

“Yes,” Aredhel said, frowning, “but I don’t see what that has to do with you.”

Brona took a deep breath, and looked at Aredhel thoughtfully before answering. “Asra thought that your relapses were brought on by reminders of your past. Things that happened before the accident. He asked me to stop coming; he thought it was doing more harm than good, and I agreed.” She raised her mug to her face, blowing softly on the scalding tea. “I suspect that is why he did not tell you about me.”

“Hey now, wait a minute,” Julian interjected, sitting up so quickly he nearly sloshed hot coffee all over his lap. “If that’s so, if Aredhel gets—if she gets sick, or unwell, when she’s reminded of her past, then isn’t it dangerous for her to be here right now? You said she lived here. We’re  _ surrounded _ by reminders of her past.”

Brona smiled, amused. “I don’t know. Maybe. Aredhel, how are you feeling?”

“I feel good,” Aredhel replied, enthusiastically, hugging her tea to her stomach. Indeed, the headache she had felt coming on in the shop had receded. Her head felt clear. “I feel… safe here, in a way I haven’t in a long time.”

_ ‘But sad, too,’ _ she added, mentally. She did not say it out loud; she could not explain it. It should not grieve her so, to think of the loss of an uncle she had not even known about until today, but she could think of no other explanation for the strange melancholy she felt.

Tempest tossed, she was, in all of these emotions she could not describe or explain. Melancholy, love, grief, joy, loathing… all of these things had come to her, and she had accepted them, but she wished she knew  _ why _ the things she learned about her past made her feel the way she did.

Aredhel thought again about the salt marsh. About not knowing the answers, and not knowing if she wanted to learn them. She still wasn’t sure what she wanted. She asked, anyway. 

“Aunt Brona, what do you know about what happened to me that night?”

“Very little, I fear,” Brona replied. “And before you ask, no, I do not know whether or not you are guilty of the crime of which you stand accused. My instinct is that you are innocent. You are like a daughter to me, and I do not think you capable of such a thing, no matter how deserving of such punishment Lucio may have been.”

“Well,” Aredhel ventured, “what  _ can _ you tell me?”

Brona pursed her lips together, and her brows furrowed. “I think,” she said, slowly, “it would be best if you told me what you had figured out already. Then, I will add what I can to what you have already discovered.”

Aredhel frowned. She believed with all her heart that the woman sitting before her  _ was _ Brona, her aunt, the wife of her mother’s brother, but for the first time since she had crossed into the house, she felt a little of Julian’s suspicion. “Can you just tell me what you know?” she asked. “Why do you need to hear from me first?”

Brona lifted a hand, palm up, and gestured towards Julian. “Your friend is right to be cautious, Aredhel,” she said, before cupping her tea with both her hands. “I am glad you came here, and that you arrived of your own choosing is a good sign for your ongoing recovery. But these things take time, and I would not start talking about your own life so carelessly, when there is still suspicion that it might not be good for you. I am especially loathe to jeopardize your health in Vesuvia,” she added, “given the circumstances. So—what do you know?”

So Aredhel told her: about the dream of the clinic, and the beast, and the flight from the desert; about the papers from her desk in the castle, and the strange sigils inked upon them; all the Countess knew (or seemed to know) that placed Aredhel in the palace on the night of the murder. She told Brona about their encounter with Count Lucio in the woods, and the words of a stranger that neither she nor Julian could properly remember. Brona did not watch her while she spoke; she stared into the heart of the fire, the light deepening the fine lines of age on her face. When at last Aredhel was finished, and Brona spoke, her voice was weary.

“We were not close, three years ago, during that period of your life,” she said, softly. “I have come to regret allowing the rift that formed between us. It formed after the death of your uncle. We argued, frequently, about how much you allowed the loss to affect you. I was trying to help you out of your grief, but I fear I pushed too hard.”

“You left—you moved out. For nearly a year leading up to Lucio’s death, you lived at the palace, where you were also working to cure the plague. You refused to speak to me,” Brona added, quietly. “I had to get news of you from Asra.”

“So you just—what—let her go?” Julian challenged, curled in his chair, his knees drawn up to his chest. “You didn't try and stop her? I notice you’ve made a point—twice, now—of calling him Lucio, without his titles. I take it you weren’t his biggest fan. So why did you let Aredhel go work for him, knowing how dangerous he was?”

Brona laughed, a bright and glittering thing like the sun dancing on a brook. No matter what accusations he leveled at her, Julian seemed to be incapable of getting under her skin.

“Aredhel was twenty-two at the time,” Brona said, favoring Julian with a good-natured smile. “She was fully grown, and mature for her age. It was not my place to ‘stop her’ from going anywhere. I did try to talk her out of it but, as I am sure you have observed, my niece has a will of her own, and a strong conviction.” Then she tilted her head to the side, a question in her posture. “Would you have let your own parents stop you at that age, if there was something you felt you needed to do?”

Julian frowned, muttered something to himself, and took a sip of his coffee to make it less clear he had no response.

Brona’s smile eased. “It matters not. You have returned to me,” she said, turning back to Aredhel, “and you have made a friend. I will help you in whatever way you can. While you are in my house, you are under my protection, and some of it may go with you when you leave. But the answers you are looking for… I am sorry, Aredhel, but I cannot give them to you. You will have to find them elsewhere. I suspect, however, that you are already set on the right path.”

  
  
  


They had nowhere to be until the next morning, when they were scheduled to meet Pasha at her cottage in the palace gardens. Julian supposedly knew a secret way through a garden wall that would allow them onto the grounds without having to pass the guards. Brona’s house was much closer to the palace than Julian’s flat; she extended her hospitality to them for the night. Aredhel could tell Julian was not happy about it, but he was not so heartless as to deny Aredhel the chance to sleep beneath (what had once been) her own roof, no matter how uncomfortable it made him. He swallowed his protests.

According to Brona, Aredhel had taken her notes and journals with her when she had decamped to the palace. But when they had finished their tea, Brona guided them to the room that looked out onto the courtyard from the west. It was Albert’s old study, Brona explained, and it was largely unchanged since the time Aredhel had lived in the house. 

“You are welcome to go through his books,” Brona said, gesturing to the wealth of tomes that lines the walls. “Perhaps you will find something in them that will help you to understand the magic you were designing at the palace.”

Julian’s face had lit up at the sight of the study. Here, at least, was something he understood. Once Brona had left them to themselves, Julian visibly relaxed. He was still keeping her old papers in his coat pocket; he pulled them free and laid them out on the desk, then started pulling books from the shelves, flipping through them for drawings and diagrams that bore any resemblance to the ones Aredhel had drawn. 

Aredhel watched him from a chair in the corner. She approved of Julian’s industrious spirit, and his research, but she had responsibilities of her own to attend. She laid out everything she had taken from the shop, and set to work making preparations for their trip to the palace. 

Brona had said she expected Asra presently, but by nightfall he had failed to materialize. Brona was not worried. There were, she said, any number of reasons that could have delayed him. Anxiously anticipating his arrival, Aredhel and Julian worked late into the evening, only stopping for a brief meal of cured meat and cheese that Brona brought to them. When at last they could keep their eyes open no longer, and Asra still had yet to arrive at the house, Brona came to show them to the rooms she had prepared for them. She led them deep into the house, through hallways that should not exist, passage that seemed to stretch interminably into the distance. 

“How big is the house, exactly?” Julian asked, anxiously, as Brona led him to his room. 

Brona’s reply did not reassure him. “As big as it needs to be,” she told him, as though that was answer enough. “Come along, Aredhel. Your room is right down the hall.”

Brona led her to a room painted jade green, dominated by a large, plush-looking bed. She showed Aredhel where to find the things she might need—a nightgown to sleep in, a washbasin, a towel, a fresh change of clothes (her old ones, apparently)—then made to leave her. At the door, however, she hesitated, her hand on the frame, her back to Aredhel. 

“Aunt Brona?” Aredhel asked. “What is it?”

Brona did not turn, but she turned her head so that Aredhel could make out her profile. “I wish to ask you something,” she said, “but you do not remember me, and I am hesitant to be over familiar with you. To you, I am sure, it is as if we had just met.”

“You’re my family, Brona,” Aredhel replied, “even if I don’t remember it. I want us to be close. You can ask me anything.”

Brona turned to face her, a wide and mischievous smile on her face, her eyes sly. “You and the doctor,” she said, crossing her arms over her stomach and leaning on the door frame. “I was wondering—is there something between you other than friendship?”

“Oh!” Suddenly Brona’s reluctance to ask made sense. “We aren’t—I mean, I don’t—maybe? It’s… it’s complicated.”

“He is very protective of you,” Brona said, and she seemed pleased by it. “When he looks at you, he does so with great love and affection.”

Aredhel felt herself color with embarrassment. If there was any doubt left in her mind that Brona was indeed her aunt, it was now dispelled. “I hadn’t noticed,” she offered, but it was not convincing in the slightest. 

Brona laughed. “If you say so, dear.” Her laughter subsided, and she gave Aredhel one last warm look. 

“Goodnight, Aredhel,” she said, softly, drawing the door shut behind her. “It fills me with joy to see you in the house again. Rest well. I will see you in the morning, and with any luck, Asra will be waiting for you as well.”

  
  
  


Aredhel was exhausted. The day had not demanded much of her physically, but emotionally it had been a whirlwind. As soon as she was alone, she changed into the nightgown Brona had left for her, and slunk beneath the sheets. One quick breath was all it took to blow out the candle at her bedside. Darkness closed over the room, and that alone carried her halfway to sleep. 

Before she got there, a timid knock on the door roused her. 

“Aredhel, are you awake?”

The voice was pitched low, but Aredhel still recognized that it belonged to Julian. She dragged herself from the warmth of her bed and padded across the floor, opening the door.

“Julian?” she asked, surprised to see him at such an hour. 

“Aredhel! Sorry, did I wake you?” 

“Not at all. I wasn’t asleep yet. What’s going on?”

He must have detected suspicion in her voice. His eye went wide. “It isn’t—I’m not here for  _ that, _ ” he said, coloring and averting his eyes. “I just, uhh…” 

He shifted his weight between his feet uneasily, kept casting furtive glances over his shoulder, back down the darkened hall. “I have another confession to make.”

Aredhel didn’t even blink. “You don’t like it here?”

The tension went out of Julian’s posture. He collapsed in relief. “I don’t like it here,” he agreed. “It’s just—it’s not your Aunt. I’m just not terribly comfortable with magic, if you hadn’t already noticed,” he said, looking at her apologetically. Hastily, he added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” Aredhel said. It wasn’t exactly news to her. She had seen the way he looked at her when she glamored herself, and his discomfort when they had entered Brona’s house had been obvious. She backed away from the door, making room for him to pass through. “Do you want to come in?”

“Thank you,” Julian said, hurriedly, and stepped into the room from the hall. He was carrying a candle with him, but that single, flickering light made the room feel too intimate. Aredhel summoned a magelight for a little more illumination. It lit up the armchair in the corner of the room, beside the bed; Julian made a beeline for it, and threw himself dramatically into it, before pulling his legs up to his chest. 

“My body—it just knows something isn’t right, you know?” he said, drawing his knees up to his chest again, just as he had beside the hearth on the loggia. “How it is inside—too big? It isn’t right. It gives me the heebie-jeebies.”

Aredhel didn’t want to mock him, but she couldn’t help it. She smiled to herself as she slipped back under the bedsheets. “I’m sure Brona would explain to you how the magic works, if you asked.”

“Explain  _ magic? _ ” he asked, with a bark of derisive laughter. “That’s an oxymoron, if I ever heard one.”

“It’s going to be alright, Julian,” Aredhel said, forcing the amusement out of her voice, trying to soothe him. “Nothing is going to happen to you in the magic house, I promise.”

But he did not look the least bit reassured. He was bouncing his legs anxiously against the floor, picking at his fingers again; Aredhel worried he’d reopen the same wounds he inflicted on himself the night prior. She thought of that morning at Mazelinka’s house, when Julian’s nightmare had woken him; she thought of the way he’d gone deathly pale when they’d seen the ghost in the woods.

(She thought of, then tried to push from her mind, the image of his flat, and Brundle, and the undisturbed pillows and blankets beside her when she woke in Julian’s bed.)

Before considering whether or not it was a foolish idea, she was scooting back to the opposite side of the bed. She patted the mattress beside her. It was more than big enough for two. “Would you like to stay here with me tonight?” she asked, cautiously. “Would that help?”

Julian went red as a tomato. “I—beg pardon?”

“We can share the bed,” Aredhel replied, as matter-of-factly as she could, drawing back the wool blankets to make space for him. “That way if the walls start closing in on us, or anything like that, you’ll have a magician at your side to yell them back into good behavior.”

“You think  _ the walls are going to close on us _ ?”

“No, but I—well,” she said, brow furrowing. “What exactly are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” Julian said, petulantly. He shivered, his eyes darting to the side. “Curses.” After a pause, he added, “Ghosts.” 

_ ‘So that’s what this is about.’ _ It was the first night they had spent since seeing Lucio in the woods, but last night they had been at his apartment, where Julian was comfortable—where he felt safe. 

“He can’t get in here,” Aredhel told him, gently. “The protections we passed through to get into the shop—Julian, there’s no way he’d even make it past the door.”

“However much I dislike magic, I dislike ghosts more,” Julian said, shaking his head. “I was a doctor: to me, dead is dead. It has to be. If not….”

“It is, usually,” Aredhel answered, sinking back into the pillows. “I mean, you’ve seen what trying to be not-dead has done to Lucio already. He’s hideous.” When that failed to have an effect on Julian, she tried a different approach.

“You know, you don’t have to come with me, tomorrow. Not if you don’t want to.”

“Of course I’m coming with you,” Julian scoffed, wrapping his arms around his ankles and giving her a pointed look. “I followed you in here, didn’t I? Even though it’s incredibly weird and unnatural. I won’t let you face him by yourself, or go into the castle alone.”

“Then you’ll need a good night’s rest,” Aredhel told him. “You’re no good to me if you’re too exhausted to think on your feet, and you hardly got any sleep last night.” Then she leveled him with a stern look, and patted the mattress a second time, to make clear she meant business. 

The redness in Julian’s face lessened, but that didn’t make him any less apprehensive. “I… I guess you’re right,” he said, swallowing. His arms uncurled from his legs, but he didn't climb out of the chair. Instead, he nodded sharply at the empty space beside her. “You’re sure, though? It wouldn’t be… too invasive? Too awkward?”

“Not for me,” Aredhel replied, more confidently than she felt. “I feel safe with you. I trust you. It’s no trouble at all, Julian. Plus,” she added, as an afterthought, “I’m used to sleeping next to somebody else. Asra and I share the bed every night in Nopal.”

“Oh,” Julian replied, flatly. For a second, in the dim of the magelight, Aredhel thought he looked sour… but if he did, it passed as quickly as it had come. Then he was standing, taking his first cautious steps towards the bed. “Well, okay then. Sure. Why not.”

Aredhel looked away, doing her best not to look at him  _ too _ intently as he climbed beneath the sheets beside her. It struck her, as he did, that this was, perhaps,  _ not _ the best idea. It wasn’t that she was uncomfortable with it; to the contrary, she felt too comfortable, too eager to have him lay beside her. But if she had been, Julian hadn’t found it off-putting; and anyway, it was too late now to turn him away. That would just be cruel. 

Once he was settled beside her, however, Julian didn't seem any more relaxed. He had drawn the blankets up to his chin, but the silhouette of his body beneath the wool seemed stiff as a board. The house groaned, and he jumped at the night-noise, breathing heavily. 

Against her better judgement, Aredhel reached beneath the sheets, and closed her hand around his. He turned at once to look at her (he had to; she was on his right, and his eyepatch made it so that he could not look at her without turning over) wide-eyed, mouth open. But she only smiled at him, and gave his fingers a reassuring squeeze.

“Magic isn’t always bad, Julian,” she told him. “It isn’t all curses and hexes. It can heal people, protect people, provide guidance. It can help you clean or cook.”

“If it’s that useful, why aren’t you shooting off spells all the time?” Julian asked, eyebrow raised in suspicion. “You could have kept us dry from the rain, couldn’t you? Or made the fire hotter, last night, so Portia could cook faster.”

“I could have,” Aredhel said, nodding, “but magic takes effort, like anything else. If I spent all my time magicking the kettle to boil quicker, I wouldn’t have any energy left for the fun magic.” 

Then she slipped her hand out of his, and reached for his face, running her fingers through his hair. At his touch, the curls brightened from red to hot pink. Julian cried out, pulling a lock of curled hair straight, to get a better look at it. Then he broke out into a fit of incredulous laughter. 

“You’ve turned me  _ fuschia, _ ” he accused, between chuckles.

“It won’t last,” Aredhel said, drawing her hand back under the blankets. She brought both her hands up towards her chest and wove her fingers together, as though that might help her resist the urge to touch him again. “But it’s nice. It’s suits you,” she said, with a crooked grin. 

Julian’s laughter subsided. It had shaken something loose in him, though; he was breathing easy, and when he smiled at her, it did not seem forced. “Thank you, Aredhel. I feel better. Sorry for being so silly about being alone.”

“It’s not silly, Julian,” she said, extinguishing the magelight and the candle both with a snap of her fingers. “And it’s no trouble. But it’s late, let’s try to get some sleep.”

“Okay. You’re right. Goodnight, Aredhel.”

“Goodnight, Julian.”

In the dark, however, sleep did not come for her. She had been close to slumber when Julian had knocked, but with him beside her, it proved elusive. The bed felt warmer, with him under the sheets. She could hear his breathing, slow and steady in the dark. Worse, she couldn’t even tell if Julian was asleep—it seemed like he wasn’t. She’d dismissed his protests, but now that it had come to the thing, Aredhel worried that neither of them would get any rest, too occupied with the thoughts of what would happen should their toes touch during the night. Would it be weird, she wondered, if she turned away from him? Would Julian be offended? Would it make his breathing sound less close?

“Aredhel, I have another confession to make. Why I’m so afraid of magic.”

The words were so soft she might not have heard them. They certainly wouldn’t have woken her if she was asleep. She blinked in the darkness, but couldn’t make out his face. “What is it?”

He hesitated before he responded, so long Aredhel briefly wondered if he’d drifted off to sleep himself. Then, he admitted, “I think I’m cursed.”

“Cursed?” Aredhel repeated. She sat up in bed, summoned another magelight with the snap of her fingers. Julian found her face immediately. His head was buried so deep in the plush pillows that it hid his eyepatch entirely; it almost looked like he wasn’t wearing one at all. “What do you mean? Why do you think that?”

Julian pulled his lip between his teeth, worried it as though he was debating his answer. “You know how you can’t remember anything from more than a few years ago?” he asked. “I… I can’t remember anything more recent than that, either. I mean, I don’t know if it’s exactly three years, or from when the Count died, but Aredhel… I can’t remember  _ anything. _ ”

“What are you talking about?” she asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. “That can’t be true. You told me—about the clinic, about the beds being full. All the stories you tell about the travelling you’ve done.”

Julian shook his head, grey-eyed gaze forlorn. “Everything I’ve told you, I’ve heard from other people,” he told her. “I don’t remember the clinic. I don’t remember the plague. I know I left, but I don’t know  _ why _ I left. I just remember coming back to the city.”

“Just because you can’t remember, that doesn’t mean you’re cursed, Julian,” Aredhel said. “I can’t remember my past, either. Do you think I’m cursed?”

“No,” Julian replied. “I think you’re traumatized. Count Lucio had that kind of effect on people.”

“Or so you were told, secondhand, after the fact.”

“By reliable sources!” Julian retorted. But then he sighed, and drew the wool blanket tighter up towards his chin. “Something happened to me when I went abroad, Aredhel. I came back… not entirely well. Mazelinka had to look after me for awhile. And remember when we woke up at her place a few days ago, when you found me on the bedroom floor? Ever since then—ever since I can remember—I’ve had these dreams, these terrible nightmares… it was the nightmares that kept me up last night. I don’t know what they mean.”

Aredhel felt her heart breaking for him. Julian looked so lost, so pitiful, with his big round eye and the great halo of curls around his head. If she didn’t care for him so fiercely already she’d be suspicious of him, not for withholding the information from her (gods knew she didn’t feel compelled to confess her period of infirmity with everyone she met) but for how closely the experiences he described mirrored her own. Maybe she should have been—he had taken great pains, after all, to make clear to her what a deplorable person he was, that he felt he had to ‘earn’ the right to be with her. Instead of suspicion, however, all she felt was sympathy. She remembered the stories he had told about Chandalar, the way he had talked about the trees in Hjallnir, and she realized that the nostalgia she had heard in his voice had not been nostalgia at all but yearning, yearning for a past that had been stolen from him as hers had been from her. Her heart—her stupid, tender, heedless heart—reached out for him. 

“I don’t think you’re cursed,” she said, settling back into the sheets. She wanted to hold him, console him, kiss him; she settled for brushing the back of her knuckles gently against the planes of his face. “And cursed or not, I’ll owe you a debt, when all of this is over. I’ll help you find your answers, I promise, no matter what it takes.”

Julian looked at her—and Brona’s words came rushing back to her.  _ ‘When he looks at you, he does so with great love and affection.’  _ Julian lifted his hand to close around hers, and brought it to his mouth, pressing a gentle kiss to her fingers. Then Aredhel was glad that the glow of her magelight was blue; it meant he would not seek the heat rising in her cheeks, the way she went pink at the barest brush of his lips against her skin.

“Thank you, Aredhel,” he said. “That means a lot to me. I know it’ll be alright, if I have you in my corner.”

“It will,” she told him. “I promise.”

“And I believe you,” Julian said, grinning, releasing her hand. He relaxed back into the pillows, and his eye slipped shut. “Goodnight, Aredhel.”

Aredhel snapped her fingers, and darkness swallowed the bedroom.

“Goodnight, Julian.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *clenches fist* finally got to write some good devorak sibling shenanigans thank god
> 
> thank you to my beta, PumpkinPillars!


	7. oh settle down little heart of mine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings: NSFW below.

Aredhel woke, felt every muscle of her body stiffen at once, then panicked. 

_ ‘How on earth did I manage to nestle myself so closely against him?’ _

The caps of her knees were pressed against the back of Julian’s, his ass cupped in the bend of her waist, practically sat in her lap. His shirt had come loose in the night, slipped down his shoulder, and Aredhel saw for the first time that it was covered in light freckles. This was easy to observe, because her cheek was pressed against them, her head curled against the back of his neck. And then, the coup de grâce, the worst of it—(the best of it)—her arm had snaked around his waist, holding him snug against her. Julian’s arm covered hers, his fingers threaded through hers, holding himself fast in her embrace. 

_ ‘You’ve curled around him like the vines around the columns in the courtyard,’  _ Aredhel thought, mortified.  _ ‘Clinging, you are. Very attractive.’  _

She scolded herself, attempting to drum up enough anger to distract her from the thrill of his strong thighs against hers; from the gentle rise and fall of his body as he breathed; from the feeling of his abdomen under her palm.    
  
Should she try to move? Should she pretend to sleep until Julian woke and let him decide what to do about their tangled limbs?  Aredhel did not know.  _ ‘Asra and I share a bed all the time,’ _ she mused, sourly, mocking her herself for whatever madness had temporarily overcome her last night—surely there was no other explanation for such an egregious lapse in judgement. ‘ _ It’ll be fine! It won’t be weird at all!’ _   


She watched Julian—that only made her more embarrassed, to be holding him and watching him sleep _ — _ and regardless of how deeply he slept, Aredhel promptly decided the only thing to do was to try to extricate herself. Aredhel knew herself; she knew that the torture of holding Julian (of touching him when she ought not to be) was one she would not be capable of enduring for long.

Aredhel softened her hand, wriggled her fingers and tried—slowly—to pull her hand from beneath his.    
  
When Julian went stiff in her arms, she felt it all over: the clench of his shoulders against her cheek, the rigidity in his legs... the sudden tightness in his stomach under her palm. 

_ ‘Maybe he isn’t awake,’ _ Aredhel thought to herself, praying for that to be the case as she held her body unnaturally still. 

She realized, too late, that unnatural stillness—that her refusal to so much as breathe—probably did not make a convincing facsimile of sleep. Julian was already turning in her arms, and when he finally rolled into his back, Aredhel found his eye was open. She had been caught.    
  
Aredhel couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.  _ ‘What am I supposed to say?’ _ She should pull away from him first, shouldn’t she—but wasn’t that as good as an admission of guilt? An apology, she feared, would make no difference now. What if Julian thought she had lured him into her bed for this purpose: to take advantage of his fear and curl close to him while he slept? Madness, foolishness; this had been a terrible idea, and all the time she was spending kicking herself and not moving was not making things any better. Julian’s eye was wide, lips parted, and he was looking at her so....   
  
_ ‘So desperately.’ _ That’s what the look was: desperation. Not confusion, or betrayal, or any of the other negative emotions she had tried to match to the set of his features—Julian had turned over and looked at her with longing, and in all the time it had taken Aredhel to figure that out, he had not stopped.

He blinked, his dark lashes brushing against his high, pale cheeks, and Aredhel felt her heart skip a beat. Whatever embarrassment Aredhel felt, Julian clearly did not share it. Unabashed, his gaze took in her face, her mouth… she felt his eye follow the shape of her body beneath the shift of her nightgown. 

He wanted her. And Aredhel could  _ feel _ that he wanted her, his longing like a solid thing she could clasp between her hands, a bright thread vibrating between them. There was a flush of arousal in his cheeks, which had just kissed his skin but was now a deepening, melon-red. His shirt had fallen open so wide he may as well not have been wearing one. Aredhel wanted to run her fingers from the hair on his navel to his chest, to kiss the skin above his heartbeat—and then she was blushing, too, if she hasn’t been already. She could feel the heat of it in her face, on her neck.

Longing—and distress, hesitation. Julian raised a hand as if to touch her, and Aredhel watched him fight himself, the naked conflict in his eye as he did so. He had turned onto his back to see her, but he was still pressed close to her, warmly nestled against her, and she looked at his fingers—so long and elegant she felt she could weep just looking at them; his strong knuckles; the bones of his hand, the strength in his wrist—and Aredhel felt her composure begin to crack. Whatever private war she waged with her own repressed desire, she knew she was destined to lose it. 

When his hand at last found her cheek, it was trembling. His fingertips barely brushed her skin, before trailing down her jaw… stopping just short of her lips. He took his bottom lip between his teeth—whether to punish himself or hold himself back, Aredhel wasn’t sure—but in worrying it he made it redder, swollen. It only drew her attention to his mouth, made her short of breath. 

And, oh, Aredhel is not as good as Julian, no matter what he says. He wanted to do the right thing, to be respectful, to wait. But now he was lying in her arms, staring at her mouth as she stared at his... tearing himself to pieces, splintering himself on his desire, wanting and wanting but unable to bring himself to take. 

So she would give. She was not as good as Julian; she could not stop herself.    
  
Aredhel leaned over Julian, her hair falling around his face, tickling his cheeks. His hitched gasp separated them—then nothing. 

She had woken curled against him, and she had already had her fill of shame and modesty for the day: when she kissed Julian, she kissed him like she meant it. She slid her hand up his stomach and brought it to the back of his neck, winding her fingers in his hair. Julian groaned—a low, obscene and beautiful sound that left her tingling between the legs—and tilted his head back to deepen the kiss. 

How obediently his lips parted for her, welcoming her into the dark warmth of his mouth! Julian shook beneath her, pressed against her, and Aredhel shook herself, practically vibrating at the pleasure of their transgression, their broken promise. It had been a noble promise—chivalrous—to wait to come together until later, when desire would not be tangled with and polluted by all the other questions of those days: who they were, who they had been, and what would become of them. A noble promise, but too aspirational. Aredhel had been tracing the curve of Julian’s lips with her eyes since she’d met him. Inevitable, this current collision between them; inevitable, but all the more sweet for how long they had managed to refuse themselves. 

...Why, then, did Aredhel feel as though she might cry at any moment? The tension she had felt on waking had not wholly ebbed, and what was left of it was not recognizable to her as the tightness that accompanied passion. Her chest was clenched, holding back a sob that was trying to shake itself loose, and all the joy she felt to be kissing Julian was colored with a melancholy—no, sharper than that—an anguish that she did not understand. It frightened her, infuriated her as much as it confused her. Aredhel closed her eyes and kissed him all the fiercer; if Julian noticed the dampness on her cheeks, he had too much tact (or too much eagerness) to stop and ask her how it got there.

Even when they were forced to part, still holding one another tight, gasping for air, Julian made no comment. His eye was wide with incredulous wonder, though the black of his pupil had nearly swallowed the lovely grey of his iris. Again he reached for her, and this time he did not hold himself back or flinch away when he took her chin in hand, reverently tracing her lower lip with his thumb. 

“Your mouth...” 

He spoke barely above a whisper. Whatever sentiment he had hoped to express with his words, however, he quickly abandoned; he shook his head then lunged for her, arching off the bed to hold his body against hers. Dizziness overcame her—Aredhel could hear her blood roaring in her ears, a drumbeat of approval in her pulse. When, in her eagerness, her teeth drew blood from Julian’s lips, he only groaned and wound his arms around her, pulling her towards him, melting against her. 

Aredhel pressed back. She threw a leg around his waist and gasped at the feel of him between her legs, already firm… surprise transformed into hunger. Her leg drew him to her, goaded his hips into a sloppy rhythm until Julian was grinding against her, thrusting his cock against the warm space between her bare thighs. 

A breathy, half-smothered sound escaped him as his hips snapped, bucking against hers. They only slowed when he wound a hand in her hair, drawing her mouth down to his to kiss her, but “don’t stop,” Aredhel whispered against his lips—he groaned into her mouth, licked the last of the words from her teeth, and obliged.

Each drag of the glorious, hard length of him wrest a gasp from her throat; Aredhel hitched her legs higher around his waist, urging him closer, rolling her heat down against him. His trousers dulled the feel of him, but her underwear were damp, and every time he thrust against her he dragged against her lips, her swollen clit… it was not enough; it was too much; Aredhel thought about the two of them lying in bed and dry humping to completion, and the thought sent such a shock and a hot thrill through her that she could not contain it. Again, she felt him press against her, and she cried out, thoughtless and careless of who might hear them.

Julian shivered at her pleasure-sound. She felt his cock twitch between her legs; he quickened the pace of his thrusts. “I’m dreaming,” he said, his voice rich with fear and denial. “This can’t be happening.”

“If you are, then it’s a very good dream,” Aredhel told him. Her voice slithered into him, tickled his ear and pooled in his gut. “I’d like to linger in it a little bit longer.”

She placed a hand on his shoulder and pressed him into the bed before she rose on top of him, straddling his hips.  It was much easier, like this, to grind against him; she pressed him against the warm seam of her, drawing her sex against his slowly, deliberately, biting back the moan building in her throat.

Julian made no such effort to quiet himself. His head fell back against the pillows and his neck went taut with the sound he made. His back pressed against the mattress, fighting against the arm she used to pin his shoulder; his hands scrambled on her thighs, before gripping them as though his life depended on it.    
  
Aredhel made her voice low, sultry, although she could not disguise the pleasured hitch in her breath when she drew herself against him just so: “Don’t— _ mm, _ don’t wake up until it’s over, okay?”

Julian whined in the back of his throat, shook his head emphatically, pledged: “No, not now, I wouldn’t—I won’t.”   
  
Some part of her tried to fight with her, wrangle her into reason.  _ ‘Foolish. This is so foolish.’ _ Maybe it was, but it was too late for logic. How could she resist him now, pull him back from the edge they were speeding towards? He lay so prettily beneath her… yielding to her, surrendering himself to her, to be given pleasure. The thought strikes her—she will take him inside of her, if he lets her—and her heart pounds so madly with it that Aredhel thinks it might leap right out of her chest. Yes, she wants him, the stretch and feel of him—if she might yet die, if she is going to die, she would rather die having felt Julian shuder beneath her and spill inside of her than not. 

“ _ Darling _ ,” Julian called her, winded, hips bucking up against hers, his hands clutching the curve of her ass.  “I’m—oh—you feel, you  _ are _ , incredible.”

Aredhel felt herself slicken at the words. He had called her ‘ _ darling _ ’ and ‘ _ incredible _ ,’ and suddenly she wanted nothing more than to find out if he’d still speak to her so sweetly when he was on the edge of his release—or if he would not; if he would curse her, or beg her instead.    
  
How could she resist him now? As easily as a starved man could deny himself food. When she pressed her lips to the place where his pulse pounded in his neck, Julian groaned; when she tugged at the skin between her clenched teeth, he cried out, her name more sob than sound when he spoke it and pulled her against him. Aredhel did not let him. She loosened his grip on her, and raked her teeth against his neck, down his collar… his skin was cool against her mouth, a revelation. She wanted more of it.

Her hands found the hem of his shirt, tugged it. “Julian. Help me get you out of this, yeah?”   
  
Julian flushed, but sat up immediately. “Yeah—yes. Okay.” He lifted his arms over his head and pulled his shirt over his shoulders with such speed and eagerness, leaving his chest bare.

But Aredhel hardly glanced at it; his shirt was not the only thing Julian had torn loose in his haste.    


The tie that fastened his eyepatch must have come loose in the night, and the friction of his shirt pulled over his head was all it needed to be set free. Suddenly, Julian was looking her not with one eye but with two, and it felt like all the air had gone out of the room. She thought back to last night, how she had teased Julian about the walls closing in on him; whatever she felt now, unnameable emotion though it was, it felt something like that, all stunned, trapped panic. 

She had assumed—erroneously, she now realized—that Julian had lost the right eye. Errant debris on the battlefield, maybe, from his days as a field medic. It had to be something gruesome, she thought—the explanation unpleasant—otherwise she had no doubt he’d take joy in the telling of it, spinning the loss of the eye into a story that would have all heads turning to listen. 

He still had the eye, but it did not match the other. It blinked open slowly, and instead of the storm-grey she expected, she found the center of his eye stained with a blood-red sigil, not unlike the ones she’d seen in Asra’s books, in Albert’s study.

(Just like the diagrams she’d scrawled all over the notes Julian had found in her desk.)

Some of the shock must have shown on her face; a second too late, Julian realized what had happened. His hand rose to his face, feeling for the patch, and when he found it missing he recoiled from her so quickly he nearly fell out of the bed in his haste. He covered his marked eye with his hand. Aredhel thought he might do better to cover his mouth; he looked like he was going to be sick.

For a moment, he only sat on the edge of the bed, silent. His body shook, faintly, but now it was not lust that stirred him. Then he sprang into action, rolling out of bed and stooping to snatch his shirt and his eyepatch from the floor. He did not wait to pull them back on before he made a beeline for the door; he did not look back. “S-Sorry. I, uh—I have to go.”   
  
“Julian, wait—!”   
  
The door clicked shut behind him, cutting off Aredhel’s protest. She heard the floorboards groan in the hall as he hastened back to his own room, leaving her with her shock and her questions and the incongruous lingerings of her fading arousal. 

His words from last night came back to her.  _ “I think I am cursed….” _   
  
_ ‘Julian, who did this to you?’ _

So much suddenly made sense; she understood, at last, why Julian had been so eager to help her. It was not that she was special, or that he had looked upon her and seen some secret corner of her soul, known her to be innocent from a glance. Maybe he hadn’t entirely lied; maybe a part of him really did think she was incapable of murder. But Aredhel was willing to wager that the real reason he had taken her back to Mazelinka’s house was more selfish than he had let on. He wanted answers of his own… and the crimson sigil that marked his eye, the one he kept perpetually covered, looked not so different from the ones in the notes he had taken from her desk at the palace. 

It hurt—there was no denying that it hurt—but Aredhel found she did not blame Julian in the slightest. So, he had deceived her; but she had come to him no more than a fugitive, and she did not hold it against him for turning to the tools of fugitives and criminals to win her trust, her help. 

Aredhel swallowed the tightness in her throat, forced herself from the bed. She went through the motions of getting dressed, pulling on a ruffled black dress (one of her own from several years ago, according to Aunt Brona) but she was so distracted by what had happened she was halfway out the bedroom door before she realized she’d put the dress on backwards.

This is why Julian had feared the house, the apothecary, the ghost, her glamor. Julian knew so little of magic; maybe all he knew was that he bore the mark of it, and suffered because of it. Maybe he was entitled to that fear—maybe he was right, and some dark magic had stolen his life from him, his memories and his stories, his triumphs and his failures. 

Aredhel slipped the dress back over her head, pulled her arms through the sleeves properly, but as she adjusted the hem another, more painful thought occurred to her.

Ever since she had met him, Julian had spoken of his past—of the things he had done, or not done, when Vesuvia was wracked with plague—with such guilt, such judgement, such self-loathing. Now, she knew he had been punishing himself for decisions that he could not even remember making. So why had he? Why was he convinced he was deserving of all the pain he had suffered?

_ ‘I think I am cursed,’  _ he had confessed to her last night. The mark on his eye did not prove him right, only that some magic had been worked upon him. And yet he had called himself cursed. Was that because, deep down, there was a part of him that believed he deserved to be?

The thought forced her back to the bed, sitting on the edge, right in the place where Julian had slept. The bed still held the warmth of his body, a ghost in its own right.

_ ‘It did not happen the way you think it did,’ _ she thought, with a determination bordering on outrage.  _ ‘I am sure of it. You are not a coward, Julian Devorak; I’ll prove it to you.’ _

She owed that to him, she figured: to help him find his answers. To be his mirror, to reveal himself to himself accurately, without the distortions of his self-loathing. She vowed to cure him of his blindness; she would show him the light he brought into the lives of others, she would make him see his own worth.

There was no sign of Julian in the hallway, and no detectable sounds coming from his room. Aredhel debated knocking, then decided against it. They would have plenty of time to talk about what had happened on their way to the castle, when they would be alone; right now, it seemed better to give him his privacy. 

An early morning rain was falling in the courtyard, its spray glistening on the slate stones that paved the arcade and the blades of grass that grew in the cracks in between them. Rainfall pattered merrily on the leaves of the living green things that lived in the house’s heart. The sound was soothing enough—and loud enough—that Aredhel did not hear the hushed whispers coming from the loggia until she was nearly upon it. 

“Brona, she doesn’t remember  _ anything _ ,” a pained voice implored. “She doesn’t remember  _ me _ , even though when she was asleep, we… and she wants to hang Aredhel—!”

“I know,” came Brona’s reply, troubled though not so fraught with panic as Asra’s. “But that is not going to happen. You will help her come back to herself before it comes to pass.”

There came a laugh, high-pitched, slightly hysterical. Aredhel’s stomach dropped. She recognized the laugh instantly as Asra’s, distorted although it was by despair. 

She wanted to run to him; she didn’t. She had dreamt of her reunion with Asra—hoped for it, though after she had seen the wanted posters urging her arrest, she had not been sure she would get it—since she had left Nopal. Then she had grown to fear it, wondering what he would think of her when he found her. It no longer mattered. Questions of what he’d withheld from her, fears he’d turn her away when he learned what she stood accused of: these things fell aside and all she wanted to do was turn the corner and throw her arms around Asra’s neck.  _ He _ would know what the diagrams on her old papers meant; he would know what to do about Julian’s “curse.” Asra always had the answers. 

...Sometimes, though, he didn’t want to give them, and that is what kept Aredhel still around the corner of the loggia, straining her ears. Whatever Asra and Brona were talking about, they were whispering; they did not wish to be overheard. Well, Aredhel was tired of being kept in the dark. 

She wanted to hold Asra, to comfort him until the burden of anguish in his voice lessened, to care for him as he had cared for her; instead, she remained hidden. 

“Help her come back to herself?” Asra repeated, bitterly. “I’ve been helping Aredhel  _ ‘back to herself’ _ for three years, and it hasn’t done any good. Maybe it’s done more harm; maybe I drove her to run away. And speaking of Aredhel, I can’t just abandon her, Brona. She needs my help, too.”

Brona hesitated before she replied. “Asra, you do not give yourself credit enough. Aredhel ran away, yes, but ultimately she found her way here, to her home. I was able to see my niece again, to speak with her without wounding her. You have helped her well, and you have given me a great gift.” After a pause, she added, “But she no longer needs you, not the way Nadia does.”

_ ‘Nadia?’ _ Aredhel’s brow furrowed. What did Asra have to do with the Countess? But then Asra was speaking again, and Aredhel silenced her thoughts.

“Who will help Aredhel, then?” Asra asked, his tone biting. “ _ Julian?  _ Brona, he's more hindrance than help, and you know it.”

“I know no such thing,” Brona replied, tartly, a note of finality in her voice. “That was a long time ago, Asra, and you would do well to remember it. Much has changed since then.”

Aredhel’s frown deepened. Asra knew Julian? Julian had not mentioned anything about Asra… but then again, maybe they had known one another in the part of Julian’s life that he could not recall. Still, Aredhel couldn’t fathom what Julian had done to earn the raw contempt in Asra’s voice. 

She strained her ears to see if Asra would argue back, if he’d disclose anything else that would hint at why he so disapproved of Julian helping her, but the conversation had ended. Aredhel lingered in the silence and counted to a hundred before entering the loggia; she did not want Asra or Brona to suspect her of eavesdropping. 

When she turned the corner, she tried her best to act surprised. 

“Asra?”

His name was a gasp in her throat, and it was not entirely an act. Hearing his voice had been one thing, but seeing him… it felt so good to see him. The house was strange, and the sky above was foreign, but the sight of Asra in front of her was so familiar it ached. He turned to look at her, eyes wide, white curls bouncing. Even Faust poked her head out of Asra’s neckline to look at her. 

“Aredhel!” Asra cried, and he was across the loggia in an instant. It did not matter, then, what had passed between him and Julian, why he knew the Countess, or what he had kept from her; Asra flung his arms around her, and she knew (as she has always known, in his company) that she was cared for, that she was loved, that she was safe. 

The sob was out of her mouth before she felt it in her chest; she held Asra tight against her and bowed her head to press her face to his scarf. Against her neck she felt Asra’s warm breath, Faust’s tongue. Asra smelled of magic, of the desert—he smelled of home—and behind her closed eyes Aredhel saw their bed in Nopal, warm against the desert dark; and smell of blue-tongued skink, well-spiced, skin charred; the brilliance of the skies, and the constellations Asra would name with her over the open, flat land. There had been such beauty in her life before all of this had begun, before she ever had to live with the questions of whether or not she had killed a man and, if she had, whether or not she regretted it. The past three years had been filled with difficulties, yes, trials of her recovery, but she knew well enough now to know she had taken them for granted.

“I was so worried about you, Aredhel,” Asra said, holding her all the tighter. “I looked  _ everywhere _ for you, I swear, anywhere I thought you might be. I even went to the palace looking for you, afraid that the guards had already caught you, that it was too late.”

“I know, Asra,” Aredhel replied. She felt genuinely guilty for the anguish she’d caused him. “I’m really sorry. But I’m okay, see? They haven’t caught me yet.”

Asra held her at arm’s length from him, his eyes narrowed to slits of suspicion. “‘Yet,’” he repeated, disapproval in his voice. “You say that like you’re planning trouble.”

“Ah, what perfect timing!” Brona called from the hearth. “ _ Dia dhuit ar maidin _ , Julian. Did you sleep well?”

She felt Asra’s hands tighten their grip on her just as she spun to face the courtyard. Julian had just turned the corner. He was fully dressed, now, from his buttoned uniform down to his lengthy boots. Aredhel was relieved to find that his collar covered whatever marks she may or may not have left on the skin of his throat; nothing about his appearance betrayed the fact that she’d had her mouth on him earlier that morning. He met Aredhel’s gaze as soon as she turned it upon him, but looked away just as quickly.

“Well enough,” Julian said, latching onto Brona’s eyes like a lifeline and bowing his head in thanks. “Thanks, Mrs. Mooney.”

“Please, call me Brona,” she said, rising from the hearth, the carrying a pan to the table. “You’re just in time, Julian; breakfast is ready.”

There was a table set deep in the recesses of the loggia, back beyond the hearth and protected from the mist of the rain. Already it was laid out with ceramic plates and utensils; a kettle, steaming, sat in the center. Brona had prepared a veritable smorgasbord for them: porridge and raisins, eggs and sausages, roasted tomatoes and mushrooms. There were bowls and berries and a pitcher of cream. A loaf of brown bread sat in the center. It was, in short, the most elaborate breakfast Aredhel could remember having in a long time.

“You must have been up since dawn cooking,” Aredhel said, in disbelief. “Aunt Brona, you really didn’t have to do all this.”

“No, I did not, but I wished to,” Brona said, setting the pan of sausages down on a trivet. “The house has not been so full in a long time, and it means a great deal to me to have you and Asra back under my roof.” She added, with a gracious smile and without missing a beat, “And of course, the occasion it is made all the more special, with Julian joining us as well.” 

Julian stepped meekly towards the table. He still wouldn’t look at Aredhel. She thought at first his timidity was because of what had transpired earlier that morning, but when she looked beside her she saw that Asra was glaring daggers at the doctor. The impish, immature urge seized her faster than she could refuse it; she elbowed him in the stomach.

Mostly, he muffled the sound; if Brona and Julian noticed what had transpired, they didn’t so much as blink. As they took their seats at the table, however, Asra spun on her, a pout of betrayal on his face. “What was that for?” he whispered.

“Cut it out,” Aredhel hissed under her breath, low enough so Julian wouldn’t hear. “Stop looking at him like you’re going to hex him.”

Asra’s expression turned dark. “Oh, that? Good. Because I  _ am _ going to hex him, if he gets you into any trouble.”

Aredhel felt herself bristling in indignation. Julian had  _ been there _ , she wanted to say. Julian had done nothing but keep her safe since the moment she’d met him, and whether or not he’d been motivated by self-interest, that was more than Asra had managed. But the breakfast table was hardly the place for that kind of discussion, especially with Julian himself sitting no more than two feet from them, so Aredhel dropped the subject, even as she mentally made note to give Asra an earful later.

They began to serve themselves. Aredhel piled her plate with eggs, sausage, and roasted vegetables. The rain in the courtyard made the air brisk, and it was good to have a warm breakfast. She was pouring herself a cup of tea from the teapot when Asra opened his mouth.

“So Julian, I hear you’ve been dragging Aredhel all over town for the past week. What have you shown her?”

It was an innocuous question. But Aredhel knew Asra better than anyone, and she knew it was leading. 

“That’s right,” Julian said, cautiously. He couldn’t have detected the wily tone in Asra’s voice, but he was still speaking with trepidation, perhaps remembering the look Asra had given him when he’d entered the loggia. “We’ve visited the forest outside the city, the South end… the old theater, too, if seeing it from the outside counts as a visit.”

“Wow,” Asra replied, with feigned awe. “Those are some busy places. It’s a miracle you guys haven’t been caught.” He stabbed at a sausage with his fork, brought it to his plate and cut it in two with a little too much enthusiasm. “So what’s the plan for today?”

There it was: the trap sprung. Aredhel wasn’t about to let Julian walk right into it.

“We’re going to the palace,” she answered, straightening her posture, squaring her shoulders, looking more confident than she felt. “Julian's sister can get us in. We’re going to search my old desk in the library, and poke around the Count’s old wing.”

Asra turned to her, his expression going from condescending to pained in an instant. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“It is no joke,” Brona interjected, as if she might preempt an argument between them by signally her early approval. “Aredhel is old enough to make her own choices, Asra. And she’s more than capable of holding an illusion.”

“There’s a lot more to worry about than her glamor, Brona,” Asra said, cautiously. He spoke in that tone of voice that always drove Aredhel crazy: the one he used when he was keeping secrets from her. “And at least, if she’s going, she shouldn’t go by herself.”

“She’s not going by herself,” Julian corrected, a terse edge to his words. “I’m going with her.”   
  
Asra glanced at Julian with a withering indifference, then turned back to Aredhel. “So basically, by yourself.” 

Julian’s protest, a shouted  _ ‘hey!’ _ from across the table, failed to have any effect on the displeasure and disapproval so clearly written on Asra’s face.

“It’s too risky,” Asra insisted, reaching across the table for her hands as he did so. Julian’s eye flashed. Aredhel felt like she was trapped between a rock and a hard place, or in that charged space of sky right before a flash of lightning. “Please don’t go, Aredhel,” Asra implored her. “It’ll be dangerous.”

This is what she had worried about: that Asra, her old Master, would try to hold her back. And now that she thought of it, he’d been doing as much for as long as she’d lived with him. Treating her like something fragile to be kept on a shelf, undisturbed, out of reach— _ no _ . 

(Is that why she had found herself so utterly smitten with Julian, she wondered? Julian led her into danger, yes; but every time, he led her back out of it. He trusted her. He believed in her strength, her fortitude—her resilience.)

Aredhel pulled her hands from Asra’s. “I can take care of myself, Asra,” she said, a little more harshly than she intended. “I’ve been doing it for a week, and I’ve gotten along just fine.”

Asra’s brow furrowed. “Fine. Then I’m coming with you.” 

“Actually, Asra,” Brona interjected, “I had something else in mind for you. Something equally important.” Pointedly, she added, “I was hoping to discuss it with you after Aredhel and Julian left.”

“I’m really sorry, Brona,” Asra said, “but it’ll have to wait. I’m not letting Aredhel go into the palace without anyone there to back her up.”

That last comment was enough to break Julian’s tenuous grip on his civility. “Who said it was your place to  _ let _ her do anything?” he argued, his hands clutching his utensils so tightly his knuckles were going white. “Aredhel can think for herself. She wants to go to the palace, and I intend to go with her. And I resent the implication that I’m useless—that it makes no difference whether I go or stay—just because I’m not a  _ witch  _ like you.” 

Almost immediately Julian colored, then lowered his eyes to the table. Asra had exhausted his patience, but not his humility. “Not—not that there’s anything wrong with, uhh, magic users, per se,” he added, flashing both Brona and Aredhel hasty looks of apology. 

Asra turned his cool gaze on Julian. “Oh? Name-calling now, are we? Fine company you’ve found for yourself, Aredhel,” he said, with a sideways glance at her from the corner of his eye. “Witch though I may be, I’m more use to you than a hack doctor who couldn’t even—”

“That’s enough, Asra,” Aredhel interjected, before Asra could finish the thought. Whatever was going to happen, she would not allow it to be decided like this, with words cut to draw blood. “If you can’t stop yourself from bickering with Julian, it won’t matter who is better-equipped at ‘helping’ me. Our cover will be blown before we get ten steps inside the palace.” 

Julian was still staring into his food, mute. At least he had the good sense to be ashamed of his outburst. Asra’s eyes were still narrowed; Aredhel could see him thinking, trying to find another way to convince her, but she wouldn’t have it. She glared at him, hard; Asra’s lip twitched, but then he slumped into his chair with a sigh, and picked at his food.

Across the table, Brona was smiling. 

“What is it?” Aredhel asked.

Brona laughed to herself, light and airy. “I am sorry. I can’t help it. So much has changed over the last three years. But sitting here with the three of you, I am reminded of how, although many things change, many things do not. You two still fight like siblings.” 

_ ‘Siblings?’ _

The word struck her with great force. Last night, Brona had told her that Asra had lived here… but with so much else to discuss, and the wonder of being in the house she’d been raised in, she had not thought about it much. 

Asra smiled at her. It was uncertain, yes—colored by fear, perhaps, or some other apprehension—but it was real, and it made her think of all the other times Asra had smiled at her like that. Waking up next to her in the morning; bright with laughter; worn with heavy-limbed exhaustion when he returned from a journey; did Asra’s smile feel so warm, so comforting, because she had been staring at it for so much of her life?

(All that time in the desert, she had thought she had no one, no family. She had been home with him the whole time, and hadn’t even known it.)

“Come now, though,” Brona said, breaking Aredhel’s reverie with a clap of her hands. “No more arguing. Finish your breakfast. If you plan to meet Portia on time, you’ll have to leave soon.”

  
  
  


They wolfed down the rest of their breakfast. Aredhel didn’t want to be late, and she also feared the longer she kept Julian and Asra together at the table, the more likely it was they’d break out arguing about something all over again. Soon, however, they were all helping Brona clear the plates from the table, and then Julian and Aredhel were sent up to their rooms to get ready for their departure. Aredhel packed and then re-packed her bag with care, taking stock twice of the protections and talismans she had prepared the day before.

When she came back downstairs, she found Julian fully dressed, engrossed in conversation with Brona. Their conversation was animated, comfortable; Brona kept pointing to different herbs growing in the courtyard, explaining (Aredhel assumed) their various medicinal properties. 

Before she could join them, however, she found Asra waiting at the base of the stairs. Without saying a word, she knew he wanted to speak with her. 

Asra stepped from the slate tiles into the courtyard. His foot nearly set down on a delicate purple bloom, but Aredhel’s cry of warning got stuck in her throat—the plant shied from his sole a moment before he set it down into dirt. He walked confidently to the center of the courtyard, the green things slipping out of his way before he had a chance to trod upon them. 

Asra’s magic—or the magic of the house? Aredhel kept her weight on her back foot, stretched her front foot tentatively forward. When it came to close to the ground (when the shape of her foot blocked out the sun) the plants cleared a path for her. 

Aredhel smiled, delighted by such simple, charming magic. When she glanced up at Asra, he was smiling back at her, standing beside the hawthorn tree. There was something sad in his smile, though, something withheld. Maybe her wonder was the source of his joy and his sorrow: it pleased him to see her delight at her discovery, but that it was a discovery at all (and not a remembrance) only underscored the loss between them, all the years they had spent together, growing up, growing close—now gone.

There was a little gurgling spring between the roots of the hawthorn, ringed by tall stalks of water mint. Asra sat down on one of the tree’s roots, and beckoned for Aredhel to join him.

“So…” she said, drawing out the word as she sat beside him. “Brother, huh?”

Asra’s grin widened. By now there was not a trace of the animosity he’d harbored at breakfast. “Something like that, yeah,” he said. Then, his grin turning sly, his tone less than charitable, “Does this mean you’ll finally stop calling me ‘ _ Master? _ ’”

Aredhel laughed aloud. “Now I understand why you hated it.”

“You’re like my older sister,” Asra said, turning his eyes away, cheeks coloring slightly.  “It was weird.”

“I’m sorry I ever forgot,” Aredhel said, ruefully. 

“You might remember, yet,” Asra replied, turning back to favor her with a soft, close-lipped smile. “You remembered enough to come here, didn’t you?”

“That was more of a coincidence,” Aredhel confessed. In reality Portia had pointed her in the right direction, but Asra was looking at her with such encouragement and eager hope that she couldn’t bear to break it with the truth.

“But what did you feel?” Asra insisted. “Remember what I told you about your intuition—your instincts for magic were always really strong. What did you feel, when you came in through the closet?”

She knew at once. “I felt at home. Not quite the way I feel with you, but close.”

Asra beamed, with mixed pride and delight. “See?” He leaned to the side, checking his shoulder playfully against hers. “It may take longer than you like. You were never very good at being patient. But maybe, one day, you’ll remember. And if not, I’ll remind you.” His grin turned cheeky; he caught his bottom lip between his teeth, teased her, “When this is all over, I promise I’ll tell you about alllll the embarrassing stuff you did as a teenager.”

“Unfair,” Aredhel pouted, leaning her head against Asra’s shoulder. “I’ll only have my shame, and nothing to tease you back about.”

“Me?” Asra said, feigning offense. “You wouldn’t remember, Aredhel, but I’ve never done anything embarrassing in my life.”

“Oh yeah?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “What about the time you forgot about the rice pudding, and it  _ exploded _ in the kitchen?”

Asra laughed, a kind of chuckle-snort that shook his body so violently it dislodged her from his shoulder. “I forgot about that. Well, see? That proves my point.”

“Asra, it will  _ kill me, _ if you put the embarrassment of my entire adolescence on me at once. I’m not strong enough.”

“Kill  _ you _ ?” Asra said, wheezing through his laughter. “Do you have any idea how much it's been killing  _ me _ the past three years, holding myself back every time I wanted to talk about growing up together?”

That softened her laughter. “You can tell me, now,” she said, gently, almost meekly. “I’m not—I haven’t been unwell, since I left Nopal. No headaches. I think I’m better—you can tell me all about it.”

Asra gave her an unreadable look, withholding, melancholy. But he smiled all the same, and leaned forward to press a kiss to her cheek. “Not yet,” he said. “Soon. I promise. Right now, though, I just want to make sure you don’t get yourself killed.”

Asra reached into his sleeve. When he pulled his hand back out, Faust was curled around it, her head turned up towards Aredhel’s face.

“Will you take Faust with you? To the palace?” Asra asked, biting his lip, looking at her hopefully. Just in case, okay? She’ll be able to let me know if anything goes wrong.”

Something had changed between them since her flight from Nopal—or since breakfast. In the past, in the time when she still called Asra  _ ‘Master,’ _ he would not have asked; he would have insisted. 

“You don’t trust me,” she said, flatly, watching Faust undulate around his arm.

“I trust you,” Asra replied. “But I worry about you, too. I’ve been worrying about nonstop since you left. Give me the day off, okay? I’ll feel much better if you take Faust with you.”

Aredhel sighed. It was so small a thing that Asra asked, for her to take his familiar with her. Her pride resisted, but she knew it was a good idea, and she was at a loss to come up with any drawbacks. Faust was discrete and well behaved.

“Okay. Fine,” Aredhel said, reaching out her hand towards Asra’s. Faust lifted her head immediately, then began wrapping herself around Aredhel’s wrist, sliding up her arm and slithering into her sleeve. “But only because she is such a good friend.” 

The praise seemed to please Faust. Faust draped herself around Aredhel’s neck, then raised her head to boop the magician gently on the cheek. Aredhel raised her hand to scratch the underside of Faust’s chin. “Can I ask you something kind of bold?” she said, keeping her eyes trained on Faust. “Since you’re not my Master anymore.”

“It never stopped you when I was,” Asra replied, coolly, a faint smile on his lips. “Ask away.”

“Why do you hate Julian?” she asked, casually. “I get the sense that Faust is meant to protect me from  _ him _ as much as from arrest and execution.”

“Oh.” Asra shifted uncomfortably beside her. “I don’t really  _ hate _ him, I guess. It’s a little bit—”

“Don’t tell me it’s ‘complicated,’” Aredhel warned, pinning him with a pointed stare. “Please, stop keeping things from me. You made such a scene at breakfast—the least you could do is tell me why.”

Asra would not look at her; he focused his gaze on the spring gurgling at their feet. Aredhel had felt so close to him—talking about their life together, their adolescence—but now he felt so distant. 

Asra sighed, shook his head. He spoke in a low voice, wary of being overheard. 

“He just… he wants his life to be so  _ big _ , y’know? When it’s happening to him, it has to be  _ the _ greatest loves,  _ the _ biggest failures,  _ the  _ heaviest guilt…” his voice trailed off, and Asra’s eyebrows pinched together, disapproving. “It’s too much. It gets him into trouble, and when Julian gets into trouble, it only ends up hurting the people who care about him.” Asra didn’t lift his head, didn’t turn, but he sought her eyes out of the corner of his own. “I just don’t want you to be one of them.”

“He’s not like that,” Aredhel said. “Or, he’s not like that anymore.”

Asra turned fully to her then, and Aredhel found his lilac eyes full of fright and concern and such profound fraternal affection, a warmth his gaze had always held but that she only now had a name for. 

“Are you sure?” 

  
  
  


When Aredhel and Julian left, Asra remained behind. Aredhel, devilishly curious about whatever it was Brona wanted to discuss with him, tried her best to linger but soon ran out of excuses. The only opportunity she would have to sneak onto the palace grounds was at the changing of the guard, and if she did not hurry, they were likely to miss it.

Back on Vesuvia’s streets, however, the angle of the sun surprised them. Whatever trick of magic and space crammed Brona’s house into the shop’s closet, it seemed that it distorted time, as well—it was much earlier in the city than it had seemed to be in the courtyard, beneath the hawthorn. They set a comfortable pace as they walked towards the palace.

They were hardly off the doorstep, however, before Julian heaved an exaggerated sigh. 

“Alright, Aredhel. Let’s just get this over with.”

Aredhel slowed, apprehensive. Was Julian just going to give her another soliloquy? She expected an earful about how everything that happened between them in bed had been a mistake, how they had to wait, how Julian was unworthy of her; she braced herself. Faust must have sensed her tension. Asra’s familiar raised her head out from under Aredhel’s collar, swinging her head in Julian’s direction. “Get what over with?”

“The questions,” Julian replied, curtly. “I’m sure you have them. I know you saw it.”

_ Oh. _ So it was about this morning, but only how it ended. She was loathe to embarrass him. “Saw what?” she asked, but the feigned innocence in her voice was not convincing in the slightest.

He leveled her with a skeptical look from the corner of his eye. Then he sighed again and stared forward, his uncovered eye glazing over. “No, I don’t know what the mark means,” Julian said, the words sounding bored and well-rehearsed, as though he’d made this particular speech a tedious number of times already. “No, I don’t know how I got it. No, I can’t see out of it. Yes, when I cry, it still produces tears.”

“Are you self-conscious of it?” Aredhel asked. “Is that why you hid it so quickly this morning?”

His cheeks colored pink, but his voice did not waver. “A little,” he admitted, “but less because of what it looks like, and more because of what it might mean. Or what other people  _ think  _ it means.”

Aredhel stopped him with a palm on his chest, lifting her free hand to hold his cheek. “It does not mean you are cursed.”

Julian was pulling away from her even as she spoke, retreating from her touch. Aredhel followed him. “Not all magic is bad, Julian. I’ll help you, we’ll find your answers—I promise.” 

She reached for him again, to comfort him, to reassure him, but Julian caught her wrist with his gloved hand before it could come close to his face and froze her with two pained words, spoken in a broken whisper.

“Aredhel, please.”

“Please what?” 

But then she looked at her wrist caught in her hand, at the color in his cheek where she’d touched him, and she understood.

“This morning was a mistake,” Julian said, but each word seemed forced, pained, as though he had to chew through glass to get them out. “We shouldn’t have—Aredhel, I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to kiss you back, I—”

“You  _ didn’t mean  _ to?” Aredhel asked, incredulous. “Kissing someone isn’t like tripping, Julian. You can’t return one by accident.”

“You don’t know me, Aredhel—and I told you, I don’t remember anything.  _ Anything.  _ If I was… cursed, or something, who knows what I might have done to deserve it? Maybe I did something awful, Aredhel.” Julian shook his head, releasing her wrist and drawing further away from her. “You deserve to have all the facts, to know the full count of my sins before you give yourself to me.”

“Stop this,” she said, voice unsteady with mixed fury and despair. “You can’t do this; I won’t let you. It isn’t fair, to rut with me in the morning, to behave so jealously of Asra—”

“ _ Is _ there something between you and Asra?”

“No!” Aredhel cried, both at the question and the outage she felt at being interrupted. “And there never will be, because, though I love him deeply, he is always pretending he knows what’s best for me, treating me like something fragile. I didn’t think you were like that—you’re not.”

She was breathing hard, at the mercy of her emotions and completely bewildered as to why they had such a strong hold on her. Was it because Asra had only just warned her that Julian would hurt her, and she did not want to give him the satisfaction of being right? Why did it hurt so terribly, a physical ache in her chest, when Julian put such distance between them?

_ ‘Whatever.’ _ She forced thoughts of Asra from her mind—she reminded herself this had nothing to do with him, or his reservations. Julian wasn’t saying ‘no,’ she reminded herself, just ‘not yet.’ Breathing through her nose, she willed herself to calm.

“I won’t push, Julian. If you need space I’ll give it to you.” She could not keep the acidity out of her tone, however, when she concluded, “But don't pretend it’s for my own good; it’s for you, because you are afraid of something, though I don’t know what.”

Julian had listened to her, forlorn and patient, but at her last words he looked like he’d been slapped. He turned away, hid his eye from her. “You’re right,” he said, dully. “I am afraid.”   
  


 

They spoke no further. Julian refused to elaborate on whatever it is he was afraid of, and Aredhel, stubborn and hurt, refused to ask him. Try as she might to keep it from her head, she kept remembering Asra’s words—his accusation, in essence, that Julian was too dramatic for his own good. Against her better judgement, she began to wonder if Asra was right. 

_ ‘Well, if he wants to stew in his own self-pity all the way to the castle, it’s not my place, nor my responsibility, to stop him,’  _ she thought to herself, tartly. 

But every step she took towards the palace seemed to blunt the edge of her anger. There was still that ache in her chest—the soreness of seeing him withdraw from her—and that was harder to bear than her anger. Without warning, she bumped Julian’s hip with her own, sending him stumbling in the sidewalk. He caught himself just before he tumbled over the balustrade and into the canal. 

Julian spun, bewildered. Aredhel only grinned at him.

“I’m bored,” she said, simply. “Tell me a story.”

“ _ That’s _ what you nearly knocked me into the canal for?” Julian asked, mouth hanging open. “Because you’re bored? You know there’s vampire eels in there, right?”

Aredhel shrugged. “I knew you’d catch yourself. You’re clever like that,” she said, with a confident lift of her chin.

Julian shook his head at her, smiling despite himself. “Why would you even want to hear my stories anymore? You know they’re all fake.”

“They’re not fake,” Aredhel insisted. “Embellished, maybe. But just because you can’t remember living them, that doesn’t mean they’re not real.” 

They were still a fair distance from the palace; she could not endure that walk with him in silence. Julian didn’t seem keen on it, either. And when Julian told a story, he threw himself into it, fully; it possessed him. She hoped it would snap him out of his melancholy.

“You’re really good at it, too. Telling stories.” There was a quiet and gentle seriousness in her praise. She felt, then resisted, the strong urge to reach out to him, to brush her fingers along the back of his arm. “Come on, Julian, let’s have one. It’ll make the time pass more quickly while we walk.”

Julian looked at her out of the corner of his eye. There was a smile playing about his lips, one that made his subsequent sigh of defeat less than convincing.

“Well, if you insist, Aredhel. Have I ever told you about the time I spent working as a field medic? Mostly it was gruesome stuff—stitches, amputations, bone-setting, that kind of thing—but this  _ one _ time….”

  
  
  


By the time they were cutting up the hill to the palace wall, it was like none of it had ever happened: their tryst and their argument both. Maybe it had been a mistake, to put it behind them so neatly, but it had cheered Julian up, and that was all that really mattered to Aredhel. When he smiled at her… she felt warm, and full, and fiercely protective of him. 

As a rule, Aredhel was not particularly patient. For Julian, she would be. If he wanted to wait, then she would wait, however long it took. She wished she could assuage his fears, convince him that his past had no bearing on their present. Until she found a way to do that, however, the respectful thing to do was to respect his boundaries. 

Maybe that was for the best. The palace’s lemonstone wall loomed before them, now; maybe it was better, to set aside all considerations of kisses and passion until they got in and out in one piece.

(Aredhel felt Faust squeeze her arm, as if she could read her mind, as if the snake agreed.)

When they met the wall, Julian turned left. They followed the curve of the barrier until they came to a small door cut in the stone—shorter even than Mazelinka—nearly covered in overgrown vines. If Julian hadn’t pointed it out to her, Aredhel probably would have missed it entirely.

“And how do you know this is here, again?” she asked. 

“The guards at the gate are absolute rogues,” Julian said, dryly. “Sometimes I’m not in the mood to deal with them when I want to visit my sister. This door puts us pretty close to her hut for the times when I don’t want to.”

Julian fussed with the knob, then the rusted hinges squealed, and the door swung open. 

Whatever Julian may have said about waiting, it did not stop him from taking her hand once they were on the palace grounds. 

Ordinarily, she would have teased him for it. Or, if she was wiser, taken her hand from his. (After all, it was this—the on and off, the hot and cold—that hurt more than the refusal itself; she hated that they were allowed to touch, but only on his terms.) There was something, though, about the tall hedges, the topiaries, the marble fountains—she couldn’t put her finger on it, but it made her hands sweat. She kept a tight grip on Julian’s, so that hers did not slip free.

All of it was unfamiliar to her—so why did the sight of the gardens fill her with such deep-seated, primal dread? She remembered the forest, the ghost, kept checking over her shoulder for milky shadows—saw nothing. Not that. But the pace of her breath, accelerating; a weight on her chest like being in the grip of an old nightmare. She wished she could turn and flee back out the lemonstone door.

Faust squeezed her arm, and the realization clicked into place.

Aredhel knew (from Asra’s repeated cautioning) this feeling of mixed deja vu and panic, but it had been so long since she’d had such a fit she had nearly forgotten. It always happened when she was close to remembering something she shouldn’t, and it always sent her relapsing into her old helplessness.   
  
Right now, that was out of the question. But Aredhel had no idea what she could do to stop it from happening.   
  
‘ _ I haven’t been unwell since I left Nopal. No headaches. I think I’m better _ .’ Haha. Yeah, right.   
  
Over the perfume of the gardens she could smell smoke and evergreen—heard the howl of a wind in the mountains—and these, she knew from experience, were warning signs. Well, bless Asra for his foresight: at least Faust was with her. If Aredhel did succumb (as she most certainly would, now that the phantom smells had returned) Asra would come to her… but probably not before she’d drawn enough attention to herself to get herself arrested.

A stab of pain erupted behind her eyes, so sharp it sent her to her knees with a cry.

“Aredhel!” 

Julian was at her side at once, each of his hands on her upper arms, keeping her from keeling over.  _ ‘More touching. _ ’ The ironic thought came to her through the pain, but little else as Julian shook her gently, lifted a hand to feel her forehead.

“Are you alright? What’s happening?”

Aredhel closed her eyes. She covered one of his hands with hers, held his fingers, felt the soft leather, the radiant warmth. Her breathing slowed.

“I’ll be okay,” she said, breathing hard, though she didn’t quite believe it. She opened her eyes, looked down the dirt trail between the trees. “We can’t stay here,” she said. “The guard—will you help me the rest of the way?”   
  
Julian gave a resolute nod, then stooped. Before she could protest he had scooped her into his arms, one one around her shoulders and one beneath her knees. Without a moment’s hesitation he was off, hurrying down the path.

“This isn’t what I meant,” Aredhel said, pointedly, teeth gritted, but the barb was blunted by how desperately she was clinging to his neck. Her head ached terribly—she feared if it became any worse she’d lose her grip on him.

“We’ll move faster this way,” Julian said, steadfast. “And at Portia’s you can lie down, get some water. It isn’t far. Sorry, though, for just picking you up,” he added. “I’m trying my best not to jostle you.”

Aredhel didn’t feel jostled—only close to him. Her head rested on his chest, and she could hear his heart beating beneath her ear. The rhythm of it soothed her; she went limp in his arms, she surrendered.

Julian carried her across the gardens, hugging the wall. Aredhel didn’t watch. She kept her eyes closed. Here, the green things hurt her and she did not know why.

_ Fire-smell. Burned flesh, singed hair. “There isn’t time. It will all be for nothing.”  _ The thought came to her just as another stabbing pain blossomed at the base of her skull; a panic, fresh and old at once, took her heart in its icy grip. She pressed her face to Julian’s chest to muffle her cry of pain. It deadened the sound but didn’t hide it entirely; Julian quickened his pace, taking the path nearly at a run. 

She felt, rather than saw, Julian pause then abruptly cut right, away from the wall. Down a small incline he carried her, his footsteps sliding on the hill, but he kept her aloft; then he stopped. Hissed, loudly as he dared, “Pasha!”

A door opened. A voice she recognized as Portia’s answered. “Ilya! What happened?!”

“I don’t know,” Julian said, and Aredhel could feel the rumble in his chest against her cheek as he spoke. “Something came over her—I don’t know, I don’t know—I—I need to set her down—”

Portia cursed. “ _ She’s not even magicked! _ If anyone had seen you—ugh, nevermind. Get inside. Right this instant.”

Shade from the sun; cool air. A door closing. Aredhel still didn’t dare to open her eyes. She felt Julian lower her onto something soft. He pressed a cup into her hand.

“Drink.” 

He was not asking—Aredhel did not think she’d ever heard his voice so firm. Cautiously, she cracked open her eyes, lifting the cup to her face. Julian was watching her, his expression deadly serious, his brows pinched.

Then, she looked beyond him. 

They were in a bright, cheery cottage. Aredhel found she was sitting in a window seat, though the curtains had been drawn to hide her from any passersby. The home had been decorated with charm and care: pressed flowers hung in frames on the walls, and pillows embroidered in floral patterns on the bed. A cat sat among them, watching her curiously. The table was set for tea.

And—taking in all of this; the home, the cat, the cool, the light—Aredhel felt her breathing even, and the pace of her heart slow. She took another sip of water. She felt better, but she didn’t think the water had anything to do with it. 

When she had half-emptied the glass, Julian finally spoke. “Aredhel, what happened back there?”

He was looking at her with clinical focus, taking in everything from the rise and fall of her chest with her breath to the look in her eyes, the color in her cheeks. For his part, Julian looked unearthly pale. 

Aredhel shifted, her fingers tapping uneasily on the cup. There was no point in lying to him. She felt badly enough already for making him worry. 

“I get… migraines. They aren’t so bad on their own if I can lie down and relax, but if I’m under a lot of stress, sometimes they lead to, sort of… breakdowns.”

“Is this what Asra was worried about?” Julian asked, his mouth tightening into a thin, stern line. “Your memories—Aredhel, I never would have agreed to come with you, if I knew it would put you at risk. We should go back. We should—”

“As I told you  _ more than once, _ you didn’t have to come with me.” Aredhel folded her arms over her chest, leaning back on the window seat. “Besides, I’m feeling better now. That was probably the worst of it. I think it was only so bad out there because… well, because that’s probably, I  _ think _ , the way I got out the night the Count died.”

“Aredhel, you were in the palace that night, too! In the  _ Count’s wing. _ Allegedly,” he added, tactfully. “What if we go inside, and it gets worse? What if it’s so painful you can’t hold your glamor? No,” he said, shaking his head. “This is a bad idea. We should call it off.”

“ _ No. _ ” 

If they left now, Aredhel did not know when she would get a chance to come back. She wanted to get at her old desk in the library more desperately than ever. Both for the sake of her innocence, and for the truth behind the mark on Julian’s eye, she wanted whatever papers were still stuffed in its drawers. Nevermind the fact that she was still certain the ghost was planning something terrible.

“Please don’t treat me like that. Like I’m delicate.” Julian made her brave; Julian made her feel adventurous, vivacious. That he might think her too weak for those things now seemed to her an unendurable cruelty. She reached out and took his hands, not to reassure him but to prove the strength and the steadiness of her grip. “I can do this, I know it. The protections I made last night—they’ll help. It was foolish of me not to put them on before we came through the wall, but we’ll prepare before we go into the palace, and it will be okay. Please, trust me.”

What she had told him was not entirely true. The magic she had wrought, the protections she had braided in Albert’s study—these things were designed, mostly, to keep the ghost at a safe distance from them, and to augment her ability to defend them against it. It was not their purpose to keep her in good health. They would keep her calm, yes, and in possession of her powers, but they would not in and of themselves stop her from having another migraine like the one that had come over her in the gardens. If there was anything that could prevent such spells of weakness, Aredhel did not know it; in all the years that Asra had looked after her, he had found no such treatment. 

But that was not going to stop Aredhel; she was getting into the palace, come hell or high water. The only thing she felt slightly bad about was the half-lie she’d told Julian to get her there.

Still, that half-lie had precisely the intended effect. Aredhel saw his resolve weaken, then crumble before her. 

“I trust you,” Julian said, a whispered surrender. “I know I—I didn't mean to do that, make you feel frail. After yesterday, I know how strong you are." Still, he couldn't stop himself from adding, "Just promise me—promise me that if it happens again, you’ll tell me, and we’ll leave.”

Aredhel grinned at him. Before he could protest, she lifted his hands to her mouth and pressed her smiling lips against his gloved knuckles. “If I don’t tell you,” she murmured against the leather, “I’m sure you’ll just pick me up and carry me out, anyway.”

She could not tell if her words embarrassed him or pleased him; either way, his cheeks grew pink. “That might be hard to explain, why I’m running out of the palace carrying you in my arms.”

“Really? Somehow, I doubt that,” she replied, her voice lowering to something like a purr. “Surely today can’t be the first time Doctor Devorak has swept someone off their feet.”

“ _ Ahem. _ ”

Julian jumped, practically yanking his hands out of Aredhel’s and coloring a shade darker. Beyond him, Portia stood with her hands on her hips. 

“Speaking of sweeping,” Portia said, pointedly, “I  _ do _ have to be back at the palace in a half an hour. If you guys have decided you’re coming, we should start getting ready to go?”

Aredhel’s grin turned sheepish. She’d been so distracted convincing Julian she was fit enough to proceed she’d nearly forgotten about his sister. “Hi, Porita,” she said, meekly. Then, gesturing vaguely at the space between Julian and herself, she added, “Sorry about that.”

“Hi, Aredhel,” Portia said, brightly. “And no need to apologize. I’ll let it go this time, since you were basically white as a sheet when you came in the door.” Portia winked at her. “You sure you’re gonna be okay, though?”

“I’ll be fine,” Aredhel said, swinging her legs over the side of the window seat and sitting upright, as if to prove her fitness. “Just need to get ready. I’m afraid that might be a bit messy, though. Maybe we can clear some space on the floor? Your home is really lovely, and I don’t want to stain anything.”

Portia beamed at the compliment. “Thanks, Aredhel! And yeah, sure, I can clear some space. While I do that, though, why don’t you change? I brought you a spare uniform from the laundry, so you’ll only have to change your face with your magic. I thought that would be easier for you.”

“It will,” Aredhel said, surprised and touched by Portia’s thoughtfulness. “Thank you.”

Portia pressed the clothes into her arms, than directed her behind a folding screen in the corner. Aredhel changed quickly, relieved to find that the uniform Portia had brought her fit her much better than the one she’d borrowed two nights ago—almost perfectly. Portia had a good eye.

When she came back into the main room, Portia had rolled back the rug, revealing the tiled floor underneath. Julian sat cross-legged on the floor, Portia’s cat nestled contentedly in his lap. Aredhel joined them there, and began to unpack the contents of her bag: inks and oils and ash.

Portia watched with fascination, pelting Aredhel with questions: what each item was for, how it was made, and how it worked. Aredhel was happy to answer, as much for Portia’s benefit as for Julian’s—after all, she’d be enchanting protections onto him, too, and she could tell that (although he had granted her his permission to do so) he was still not entirely comfortable with the idea. She drew a sigil on his throat in vervain and lemongrass and hawthorne ash, and all the while she felt his eye on her, watching with a mix of fascination and fear as she traced faint geometry on his skin. 

Faust supervised the proceedings from above, watching from the tea table. Aredhel tried not to be too apprehensive of her, or turn her eyes to the snake too often. She did not know whether or not Faust had already communicated to Asra what had occured in the garden—how she had nearly collapsed, no doubt  _ exactly _ as Asra had feared she would—or if the snake had kept her secret… after all, Aredhel had recovered. Then again, if Faust had been in touch with Asra, Aredhel expected he’d be breaking down the door to Portia’s cottage by now.

By the time they finished, Aredhel’s headache had receded entirely. She was not foolish enough to think she wouldn’t suffer any more pains as the day wore on, but she was prepared for it, now; she told herself it had only been so bad in the garden because it had caught her by surprise. Besides, Julian would be with her. _ ‘It will be fine,’ _ she told herself.  _ ‘It has to be.’ _

After she glamored herself, they left the cottage, heading across the lawn to the castle doors. As Portia led them, she explained to Aredhel and Julian the plan to get them in and out of the palace unnoticed.

“Today, some of milady’s sisters are arriving for the Masquerade. She’s… well, let’s just say they’re not exactly as close as Julian and me, so she should be distracted,” Portia told them, marching across the grounds. “I told milady that I had hired my brother, here, to inspect and approve of the plans for the Masquerade’s infirmary.”

“Infirmary?” Aredhel asked, with a frown of confusion. “I though the Masquerade was a paty?”

“What kind of a party is it, really,” Julian asked, with a grin and a raised eyebrow, “if nobody breaks any bones celebrating?”

Portia elaborated. “Let’s just say some party guests have a tendency to get a liiiiitle out of hand. Nothing serious, usually, but it’s good to have a couple of people on hand to help the poor folks who have indulged in a little too much drink… or need their bones set.” 

_ ‘What kind of party is this?’  _ Aredhel found herself asking. She made a point to remember, later, to ask Asra if she had ever attended the Masquerade before. No doubt if she had he’d recount her antics with great glee—she hoped desperately he didn’t have a story that ended with her in one of those infirmaries.

“I’ve told everyone I hired you as Doctor Devorak’s assistant for the day,” Portia continued. “If anyone asks, we’ll call you Arya. That okay, Aredhel?”

“Sounds great,” Aredhel said, brightly. She made sure to fall back out of courtesy to Portia before she whispered to Julian, “You’re my  _ boss _ for the day.”

He lifted a hand to tug at his collar, but otherwise hardly looked at her. “As if that matters,” he said, with a raised eyebrow. “I doubt it will make you more inclined to listen to me.”

“Maybe it won’t,” she grinned. “But I hope I’ll be able to find some other way to exceed your expectations of me,  _ Doctor. _ ”

They were not as out-of-earshot as Aredhel thought; Portia turned, rolling her eyes and pulling a face. 

“Gosh, you two. Save it for the library, will you? Try to keep it together at least until we’re out of sight.”

Julian couldn’t meet Aredhel’s eyes; his face had gone beet-red. Aredhel only smiled. “Is that where we’re going first?” she asked.

“I think that’s best,” Portia replied. “The library is restricted, official access only. Once you’re in, the door will lock behind you—no one else will be able to get in—and I can go find out where milady is, and plot the best route to smuggle you into the Count’s wing.” 

By now they were at the castle doors. Even through the thick wood and wrought iron, a faint buzz of activity was audible beyond. Portia stopped on the threshold, pressing her palms together, looking at both of them in turn.

“If we somehow get separated,” she said, with the utmost seriousness, “don’t panic. We’ll meet back at the cottage, okay?” Then she looked at Aredhel and added, “Don’t let my brother get you into trouble.”

Before Julian had a chance to protest, she turned, and pushed open the doors.

The clamor of sound, the riot of color—the sheer  _ size _ of the place—these things made such an impression on Aredhel that the force of them nearly knocked her backward. Servants were standing on ladders, hanging sheer fabrics in rich colors across the vaulted ceilings of the hall. Vendors bustled to and fro, carrying boxes, pushing wheelbarrows of brightly colored masks and party favors. A magician (a hired one, Aredhel presumed) enchanted strings of magic lights to play among the other decorations. It was grand; it just as sumptuous as the fabric of her borrowed servant’s uniform. And this, she realized (nearly staggering under the weight of the realization) was just a  _ corridor _ . The ballrooms, the salons, the great halls—these, she had no doubt, would dwarf the corridor they now stood in with their magnificence. 

When the stupor wore of, panic swelled in its place. The palace was far busier than Aredhel expected, and she feared what that might mean for her plans today. But as Portia led them through the hustle and bustles, she realized with relief and giddy elation that no one was so much as batting an eye at them. If anything, the other servants seemed relieved when they passed and got out of their way.

Portia’s fingers found her sleeve and tugged. “This way.”

Down a hall to the left she led them, deeper into the castle. Gradually the hustle and bustle of the Masquerade preparations receded behind them. Aredhel tried to keep track of their route, but soon gave up; the palace was too large, and they took too many turns, and soon she was at a loss to say where they were headed or from whence they had come. She admired Portia; Julian’s sister navigated the labyrinthine halls of the palace as though she knew them as well as the back of her hand.

At last, Portia stopped beside a round wooden door. The shape of a massive tree had been carved in relief on its surface, and from its boughs hung a wealth of fruits, each represented with a beautiful inlaid gemstone.

“Milady designed it herself,” Portia said proudly, heaving a massive key ring out of her pocket. That left Aredhel perplexed—for the life of her, she could not find a keyhole in all the twisting roots and leaves—but Portia found it with ease, making deft work of the first lock, then the next. As each lock clicked open the branches of the tree twitched to life, and where they gnarled and knotted, they left new locks revealed in their path. The door was as absurdly complicated to open as it was ornate.

Aredhel frowned. “Why are the books of all things, locked up so tight?”

“The door dates back to the time of the plague, when milady first came to Vesuvia from Prakra,” Portia explained. “There were… security issues, I’m told, with some of the research that was being conducted at that time.”

Aredhel’s frown deepened. It had not escaped her notice that the door locked from the outside. She could not help but wonder if the door had been erected to keep safe the research within, or if it was meant, rather, to keep the researchers stuck inside.

After ten keys had met ten locks, the door swung open. Beyond, the room was dark; the whole space was lit by one massive window opposite the door, but its panes were clouded with dust. Plants had forced through the glass in places, and vines had begun to crawl their way into the room, ivy creeping along the shelves and dangling to the floor. Two stories of bookshelves lined the walls, with ladders running in tracks around the perimeter of the room to assist anyone wishing to reach the books on the highest levels. Among the stacks, various desks sat in alcoves, some empty and some cluttered with parchment.

Aredhel felt cool scales against her arm; Faust slid out of her clothing and dropped to the floor, disappearing among the stacks. Aredhel let the snake go; no doubt she’d find some cozy spot to sun herself, then reappear when it was time to move on. Aredhel was just as eager to follow—something in the room was tugging at her, an itch of her magical intuition—but Portia’s voice stopped her. 

“Alright, you two. I’m gonna go see what’s up, see if we can get you into the Count’s wing. Won’t be gone long.” She turned and glared daggers at Julian. “Don’t get in any trouble.”

Julian returned her warning with an impetuous grin. “Come on, Pasha. We’re two academics in a library; we’re just going to sit quietly, maybe read a little. What’s the worst that could happen?”

“That’s exactly what I’m afraid of,” Portia said, darkly. She strode up to her brother and poked a finger firmly in the center of his chest. “I don’t know about Aredhel, but reading always gave  _ you  _ the worst ideas.”

“Reading is enlightening!” Julian exclaimed. “I demand you to name one  _ single _ instance in which I—”

Portia volleyed back without missing a beat. “Two summers ago, when you reread  _ Romeo and Juliet _ for the first time.”

That was all she needed to make her point. The mischief fell off Julian’s face and he gave a somber nod. “Point taken.”

Portia held his gaze, as if she was not quite sure whether or not to believe him. Finally, she nodded, and retreated into the hall. “Back in a bit!”

She pushed the door closed behind her; ten bolts slid into ten locks with an ominous, reverberating thud, and then the library was silent, and they were alone. 

“Well,” Julian said, breaking the quiet with affected cheeriness, “let’s have a look around.”

“Oh, no,” Aredhel said, shaking her head. She was looking at him with barely controlled glee. “I can’t just pretend I didn’t hear that. What was Portia talking about, with you and  _ Romeo and Juliet? _ ”

Julian whispered something under his breath; Aredhel had the impression he was cursing his sister. “I promise you, it’s not what you think, and it’s more embarrassing than you’ve probably guessed.”

“I haven’t guessed anything,” Aredhel replied. “I’m much more interested in hearing you tell me what happened.”

“Because I’m such a good storyteller?” Julian asked her, sardonically. 

“Precisely,” she replied, simply, honestly, earnestly. “Tell me everything. Who was your Rosalind?”

Something in the purity of her answer must have won him over. Julian sighed, but a smile curved the edges of his lips and spoiled the effect of it. “Well, a more appropriate question would be, ‘who was my Tybalt?’ I saw more of myself in Mercutio than I did in any Capulet or Montague.” 

He frowned, then, and took a few steps towards the stacks. “At least I thought I did. I read that play pretty soon after my accident, and I… I  _ thought _ he reminded myself of who I used to be. Maybe I was just projecting.” He ran one of his hands down the spine of a nearby tome, his glove coming away covered in dust. “Mercutio reminded me of what I’d lost, what I hoped I could still get back, who I wanted to be now: fun, adventurous, fiercely loyal. Maybe a little mischievous.”

“You’re those things in spades, Julian,” Aredhel said, following him. “Maybe not so bawdy as Mercutio, though.”

“Trust me, what I lacked in vulgarity I more than made up for with buffoonery,” Julian added, with a wink and a self-deprecating grin. “I wanted my old life back so bad I got a bit quixotic about it—had a tendency to pick pretend duels with my friends when I was too deep in my cups. At the slightest provocation I’d be pulling out my imaginary rapier.” Here, he put his gloved hand to his hip as if he were drawing a sword from a scabbard, unsheathing the pretend-weapon dramatically. “‘Tybalt, you rat-catcher!’ Et cetera, et cetera. Most of my friends were good sports about it, or otherwise so tipsy themselves that it was easy to goad them into playing along.”

Julian shook his head, wandering deeper into the recesses of the library. “Long story short, one night we were all fooling around like that on the way home from the Raven after one too many Salty Bitters. When Tybalt—really, Rodya, this time—ran me through with his ‘sword,’ I ‘died’ with a little too much enthusiasm and fell, right over the balustrade, right into the canal.”

Aredhel couldn’t help it; she laughed, but immediately felt terrible for it. She held her hand over her mouth but it did not quite hide her grin. “Gods, I’m sorry. That isn’t funny. You could have drowned!”

“It  _ is _ funny,” Julian corrected, with a cheeky grin. “Much funnier if you’d seen it—I went ass over teakettle right into the water. And drowning was the least of my worries. One of the vampire eels got  _ this close, _ ” he said pinching his fingers together for emphasis, “to chewing my face off. I would have been a goner.”

Aredhel listened with rapt attention, still beaming at him. “So what did you do?”

Julian’s grin widened to something devilish. “Punched it in the nose, of course.”

“In the nose? I thought that was for sharks?”

Julian shrugged, turning so he could face Aredhel while walking backwards between the stacks. “Worked just as well on eels. Well, this eel.” He paused, eye downcast, reflecting. “And actually, I suppose I punched it more in the face than on the nose. I also, if memory serves, screamed like a banshee. Luckily my friends fished me out of the water before the poor, stunned thing came to its senses.”

By now, however, Aredhel was hardly listening. She had come to a dead stop herself, but she was no longer looking at Julian. Her gaze was caught instead on one of the library’s alcoves. Within it stood an ornate desk, the legs and drawers carved with elaborate floral motifs. It looked ancient; in some places the polish had worn through to the raw wood beneath. It was covered in books and folios, all arranged on its surface in neat stacks. 

But those stacks looked...  _ wrong. _

That thing—that feeling she had felt when she’d come in, when Faust had sped off, that  _ tugging _ —she felt it even stronger here, in front of the desk. She dropped into the chair in front of it then began to sort through the papers on it, rearranging them into new piles. 

Julian followed her. He glanced at the papers, then at her hands. “Did you—is this yours? Are you remembering?” Then, with less wonder, he asked, “How does your head feel?”

Aredhel was so engrossed in the task in front of her, it took her a moment to respond. “I’m fine,” she said, after a pause. “I… no, I don’t remember. I don’t think so. It’s my handwriting—I know it’s my desk, but I don’t remember sitting here, or these papers. I just know they’ve been moved; I know… how it should all be organized….” 

Muscle memory or some other kind of associative impulse guided her, stacking diagrams on notes, logs with other records, ordering the books that had clearly been pulled from the shelves. When she stacked the last of the folios together and put them in the far left corner of the desk, she froze, her hands hovering over the wooden surface. Something, some impulse held her.

_ ‘There’s something I’m missing,’ _ she thought, perched in the seat.  _ ‘Something important, secret.’ _

“Underneath.” The word slipped out of her. She shoved her hands beneath the desk, bending over it as she groped blindly at the underside of the central drawer. 

Her hands closed around cool, slick metal. When she pulled her hand back out and opened her palm, she found she was clutching a dark and greasy-looking key, a red gem set in its eye.

“Hmm.  Hah. That’s, uhh— _ my,  _ that’s unpleasant. What, ahhh, what is that, that you’ve found there?”

There was an uncertain pitch in his voice; breathy, pained. Alarmed, Aredhel turned. Julian was still behind her, but he looked like he was barely standing; he was bent over, one hand clenched on the back of the chair. His free hand shook, palm hovering over his chest, above the protective talisman she’d hung beneath his coat at Portia’s.

She was out of the seat in an instant. “Julian, are you alright?”

“Hmph!” Julian managed, a sound of pained wonder, as if his reaction was just a delightful conundrum to unravel. He staggered towards the desk, leaning on the edge of it for support. “That’s— _ oof— _ isn’t that curious? Why does it smart so bad?  _ AH! _ ” He cried out and pain; and his hand flew to his temple.

Short of breath—hands to his head—it hit her.  _ ‘Was this how I looked in the garden just hours ago?’ _ Bent over, dazed with pain, a feeling like someone was driving a knife through her skull.

Hastily, she stashed the key out of sight, deep in her pockets. Then she stepped close to Julian, her knees bumping against his. She held his shoulders and guided them gently until he was standing straight, breathing deeper, then pried his hands from his temples and replaced them with her own.

“Breathe,” Aredhel told him, pressing her fingers in circles against his scalp and his hairline, trying to soothe him the same way he’d helped her in his apartment, the morning after the docks. She listened acutely as his panting slowed, and his breathing deepened. “Good. You’re doing great, Julian. That’s it. You’re alright.”

His eyes were still squeezed shut, but some of the color was coming back into his face. “Why did it upset me so?” he whispered, incredulously. “Where do you think the key leads?”

“I don’t know,” Aredhel admitted. Nor was she particularly keen to find out, given the reaction Julian had to the sight of it. Who knows what would happen if they found out what lurked behind the lock? “How are you feeling? Any better?”

“A lot, actually,” Julian said, grinning in surprise and relief. Then he laughed. “Wow, I never really thought that would...”

“Never really thought what?”

Julian’s smile faltered, and he looked away from her. “Never mind. It’s not important. What matters is, that helped.” He took her hands between his and lifted them to his mouth, kissing her fingertips. “Thank you, Aredhel. That was more kindness than I probably deserved, after this morning.”

“Don’t be foolish, Julian,” Aredhel scolded.  “Even if I was still angry with you about that—and for the record, I’m not—I wouldn’t leave you to suffer, if I could help it.”

What help she had given, however, proved insufficient a second later, when Portia’s voice cut through the quiet of the library.

“Quaestor Valdemar! What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with the other courtiers?”

It was like he had never calmed down. Julian went stiff as a board, grew short of breath, paled; she felt his hands begin to shake before they clutched hers all the tighter. His eye found hers, wide with panic, and he fought to speak past the sob building in his chest.

“We need to leave,” he barely whispers. “We need to go—now, I—!”

But then he fell to his knees with a cry. His body met the ground with an audible smack, and his hands flew to his head, and try as she might, Aredhel could not get him off the ground. 

  
  
  



	8. lay my bones in neat little rows

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Self-mutilation/self-harm (very mild) in the context of blood magic. Canon typical violence. Near death experience. Detailed injury description. Valdemar (therefore, mentions/descriptions of vivisection/medical violence.)

“Quaestor Valdemar! What are you doing here? I thought you were taking counsel with the other courtiers.”

Julian went stiff as a board, grew short of breath, paled; Aredhel felt his hands begin to shake before they closed around hers all the tighter. Julian’s eye widened with panic, and he fought to speak past the sob swelling in his chest, threatening to spill over. 

“We need to leave,” he whispered. “We need to go—now, I—!”

Before he could say more, Julian fell to the ground, covering his head with his hands and curling around himself. With the staggering, uneven ferocity of his breathing, he looked like he was shrinking… body shaking as Julian made himself as small as possible, as though he was trying to disappear. 

Aredhel felt wounded, desperate, and trapped—not by her own fear but by Julian’s, which held him so tightly in its clutches and against which she did not know how to defend him. But Aredhel knew two things, at least, with perfect certainty: that she would do whatever she could to keep Julian out of the same room as the Quaestor, and that she wanted more than anything to take him into her arms.

She knelt beside him, careful not to strike the floor with her knees as violently and loudly as Julian had, then wrapped her arms around him and pulled him against her.

There had to be  _ some  _ way out of this mess—or was it already too late? Julian had gone down so quickly—Aredhel cursed herself for failing to catch him, to slow and soften the force of his fall—and he had hit the floor hard enough that Aredhel feared the sound had been audible in the hall. As Julian wound his fingers tight in her clothes, burying his face in her neck and muffling the sounds of his fear against her skin, she strained her ears, trying to catch as much as she could of Portia’s confrontation as her mind raced for a solution, a miracle.

“I require a book.” That must have been Valdemar’s voice; it certainly wasn’t Portia. “Regrettably, in order to retrieve it, I have little choice but to try and catch  _ you _ , now that the Countess has put the keys in your permanent and uninterrupted care.”

The Quaestor’s voice had an unearthly, oily quality to it. It slithered through Aredhel unpleasantly, but she willed her pulse to remain steady—Julian needed her. This was no time to panic. “It’s okay,” she breathed against Julian’s hair; the only response he gave was a light hitch of his breath.

“You—you need a book  _ now?” _ Portia squeaked. “My apologies, Quaestor, but I’m afraid I’m in the middle of a very urgent task for milady, and I  _ reeeeally _ can’t be held up. We’ll have to arrange a time later—”

“But you have the keys in your hand. I see them right there.” A pause; then the voice changed, as though it were trying for a more gregarious approach.... the tone of familiarity only made the sound of the voice more menacing. “It won’t take very long,” the Quaestor told Portia. “I won’t tell a soul. Go on, let me in.”

“Quaestor Valdemar, I’m sorry, I am, but I really need to be going—“

“ _ Servant, _ ” the Quaestor replied, pointedly sharpening the word as he thrust it at Julian’s sister, “I promise, whatever task it is that awaits you, you will not like what happens if I am forced to ask a third time.”

Portia gave an exaggerated sigh. Her massive keyring jangled, and Aredhel’s heart leapt into her throat. 

“Very well, Quaestor, but milady won’t like it. Don’t blame me when you get an earful from her later about this.”

“I can endure the displeasure of the Countess,” the voice replied. Aredhel could practically hear the sneer in it; the contempt, however, was much more abundantly clear. “Now, please: the keys.”

The sound of the first key sliding into the lock stirred something in Julian. He snapped out of his inertia and turned to face her, and even in the faint light of the library Aredhel could see that his eye was pink, and too wet.

“You need to get out of here.” His voice was thick and wet with unshed tears, but resolute. “Go without me, use your magic. I won’t let you get caught, especially not by  _ them _ .” ‘Them’ was Valdemar, Aredhel guessed, and when Julian spoke of the Quaestor, there was a venom in his voice Aredhel had never heard before. “When that door opens, you run, you get out of here. I’ll hold them back, whatever it takes.”

“Julian—”

The first lock clicked open, cutting her off. 

“—Julian, drop it,” she said, lowering her voice. “I’m not leaving you like this, so you can forget about it. Me? I can glamor myself, I’ll be fine. I’m worried about _ you _ .”

Julian shook his head, two quick jerks that sent his curls bouncing. “Aredhel, I don’t think the glamor will help. I… I  _ know  _ that voice. I don’t think an illusion will keep you safe this time.”

“What do you mean, you ‘know’ it?” Aredhel asked, frowning. “How did you know Quaestor Valdemar? Why won’t my magic work on them?”

Julian groaned, the long low moan of a man deep in fever, and shook his head again. “I don’t know. I don’t remember, but I feel this—this fear.  _ That’s _ familiar—an old nightmare. And my head—my head feels like it's splitting in half.” 

Julian pressed his lips together, holding back a pained keen, then buried his face against Aredhel’s collar. He drew her close to him until Aredhel was practically sitting in his lap. “I feel— _ hah— _ you get the last laugh after all, Aredhel: I’m the fragile one.”

Aredhel only watched his face until he hid it, then ran her fingers through Julian’s hair, rubbing his temples, trying to alleviate an ache she was all too familiar with herself. She had to get Julian out of the library, before whatever was happening to him got worse… but she had no idea how to do that. She was helpless in the face of his suffering. “I’m not laughing.”

Portia’s keys jangled again, only louder this time, as though they had struck against a hard surface. 

“Oops! Dropped the key ring again!” Portia exclaimed. “Sorry, Quaestor, my fingers are so  _ slippery _ today.”

The Quaestor’s voice was thin, skewing shril with impatience. “Perhaps I should take over for you, on account of your slippery fingers, and since you are in such a hurry...”

“And have  _ you _ opening doors for  _ me? _ Never, Quaestor! I can’t allow it; that would be shameful. Don’t worry, it won’t take me more than a moment…”

Portia was giving them what time she could, but she couldn’t stall forever. As Aredhel listened, the fourth key clicked in its lock. She ran her hands up and down Julian’s back, trying to soothe him as she racked her brain for some way to escape.

...Well, firstly, they were doing themselves no favors by sitting in full view of the door exposed as they were. 

Aredhel put her knees beneath her and tucked her arms beneath Julian’s. “Come on,” she said, and without giving him a chance to argue, she hoisted him onto his feet. “Get up. Let’s at least get out of sight.”

She half-carried Julian to the stacks, dragging him with her as the fifth key met its lock. As it turned and its tumblers clicked open, she gathered Julian into the library’s shadows, shielding his body with her own, pinning him against the books to keep him on his feet. 

Should they wait here? Aredhel could deepen the shadows around them to provide them with a little more cover, but if the Quaestor was as adept at magic as Julian seemed to think that wouldn’t matter. Worse, Julian would suffer if they hid. He was trembling at the sound of the Quaestor’s voice alone; whatever they had done to Julian, whatever Julian had forgotten and was just now beginning to remember, Aredhel did not want to put him through the added trauma of coming face-to-face with the courtier. 

“You need to go,” Julian insisted, stubbornly, mustering up just enough energy to give her an imploring look. “Just leave me. I promise, I’ll be fine.”

“You won’t,” Aredhel volleyed back without batting an eye. “You look awful. I won’t leave you alone like this.”

The sixth lock clicked open, and Julian’s eye flew wider. “You have to, Aredhel! Please, whatever is happening to me, it isn’t worth getting caught over.”

Aredhel shot him a look. “You don’t deserve to be abandoned, and I don’t deserve my freedom if that’s how I win it.” Then she set her face, hiding her own fear as she glanced around the library for any hint, any help… anything.

She had no intention of getting caught. Pride would not permit her to surrender, to submit, to despair. As the seventh key turned in the lock, Aredhel began to shake, her body quivering against Julian’s—but unlike Julian, she shook not from fear but from adrenaline.

There must be something, something she wasn’t seeing, something she had overlooked. Aredhel thought of the small windows; the ivy trailing down the library wall; the key on her desk; she closed her eyes, and reached out with her magic. 

There, on the edge of her consciousness, she felt Asra—or rather, the psychic nudge that always felt just a little like Asra, but not quite. A telepathic trill, the silent signal Faust always gave when she wanted to draw attention to herself. Aredhel opened her eyes, and found the snake on one of the book stacks against the wall, wiggling, trying to catch Aredhel’s eye. Then, something else—a sharp-edged whisper in the margins of her mind—something that had nothing at all to do with Asra’s familiar. 

By the time the eighth key turned in the lock, Aredhel’s feet were already guiding her to the bookshelf. “Quick, Julian,” she said, taking his hand and pulling him along behind her. Panic, protectiveness—the roar of her blood in her veins—kept her mind mercifully blank; it was not memory, or a flashback that moved her but something old in her muscles, a habit worn into her until its evidence could not be erased. Her tongue found the words as her fingers found the spines of the books.

“Red,” she breathed, tugging on the hardcover. “Leather. And black with gold.”

The ninth key turned in the lock; the shelf swung free of the wall, and Aredhel hardly spared a glance at the passage beyond before she was ushering Julian into it. “Quickly, quickly.”

Julian didn’t need the encouragement. He practically flung himself into the darkness, pulling Aredhel in after him. She barely had time to scoop Faust off the shelves and back into her arms, then closed the shelf behind them just before Portia finished opening the final lock of the library door. 

Adrenaline was still surging through her, keeping her muscles tight, ready to flee or strike out—but Faust slithered around her arm and squeezed it gently, as if to remind her that now was not the time for instinct, but caution. Aredhel took Julian’s hand. Then she fumbled ahead of her and to her sides until her fingers found a rough-hewn, curved wall—tentatively she followed it, leading Julian further into the dark.

Above all, Aredhel did not want to be caught—she did not want to be heard—she wanted nothing to give them away. She was wary of standing to close the hidden door in case the Quaestor could make out the sound of their labored breathing. She weighed the risks of stumbling in the dark against the chance of whatever light she might summon spilling out from beneath the bookshelf, and took her chances with the dark. 

It did not escape her notice, nor did it quell her unease, when she realized she was navigating the stairs as easily as she might walk blindfolded around her own home; her feet knew them that well. 

They descended, clinging to each other in the dark, silent but for their breathing. Aredhel found herself shivering; she had broken out into a sweat, probably in the library, but she hadn’t noticed until they entered the passage. Here it was humid and drafty, and as the perspiration cooled on her skin, she felt chilled. The servant's uniform Portia had loaned her was many magnificent things—beautiful, comfortable, light—but ‘warm’ was not one of them.

It was impossible to tell how much time had passed. Her heart was beating too fast, and her breaths were too uneven to reliably count by. After some time had passed, however, she knew they must be far enough from where they started that she could risk a little light. 

“Julian, cover your eye for a second, okay? I’m going to summon a flame, but it’s going to seem really bright at first. Just protect it until your vision adjusts.”

The spell ignited in her palm; when it illuminated Julian’s face, Aredhel found he was dutifully shielding his eye from it, just as she’d asked. He looked… if not good, Aredhel thought, then collected. Altogether less like he was unravelling, the way he had seemed to be in the library. Something tight unclenched in her chest, and she felt a little more at ease. 

Julian lowered his hand and blinked, still a little bewildered by the light but able to see clearly enough. His eye found hers, and he beamed at her.

“That was incredible!” Julian cupped her face between his hands, drawing close, unable to conceal his giddy delight. “How did you know the tunnel was there? Was that a magic thing? Because if it  _ was _ , and it gets us out of more tight spots like that, I might yet come around on the whole ‘magic’ business—that was incredibly handy.”

It was good to see him recovered, but Julian’s excitement was not enough on its own to put Aredhel fully at ease. “I… don’t know,” Aredhel admitted. “I think I’ve been here before. That I used to come here… but I’m not really sure where ‘here’ is.” And the sense of foreboding in her gut made her less than eager to find out. 

For the first time they took in their surroundings. They were standing in a narrow passage, just tall enough for Julian to stand without scraping his head, and not wide enough for two to walk abreast. The walls were rough hewn; in some places, the sides of the passage were no more than packed earth. The stairs beneath their feet were worn smooth as seaglass—it was a small miracle they had not slipped in the dark. 

“Wow,” Julian breathed, looking around in awe. “I wonder how deep we are.”

Aredhel did not reply. She had never loved places like this, burrowed so deep beneath the earth that the light could not touch them. 

Julian smiled, and offered her his hand. “Well, come on,” he said, gently. “I think this qualifies as ‘separated’ from Portia. Wherever this tunnel leads, I’m sure we can find a way to circle back to the Portia’s cottage on the other end.”

His optimism cheered Aredhel, even if she didn’t share it. For whatever misgivings she might have about the foulness of the tunnel ahead, at least Julian had calmed down. His head no longer seemed to be causing him pain—that was what mattered most. She let him lead the way deeper into the dark, the light in her hand spilling into the tunnel around and ahead of him. 

The firelight jumped in her palm and exaggerated the frown lines around her eyes. Julian panicking… had unsettled something in her, jostled it loose, and she felt fierce and fearful at once in the face of it. But if Julian noticed this, he gave no outward sign of it; the allure of the tunnel held his attention. 

“Where do you think it goes?” Julian asked, pleasant and curious. “Servants corridor? Secret escape route? Or the Count’s private dungeon for, ahhh, exploits of the more  _ erotic _ nature perhaps?” Julian frowned, then reconsidered. “Though I think it would have been uncharacteristic for him to go anywhere near books, and there would be no plausible excuse for him coming and going in and out of the library so often. So it probably isn’t that.”

“Secret escape route seems too convenient,” Aredhel replied, dryly. Though no doubt if she had been working in the library, as her desk seemed to suggest, she would have sought a better way to come and go than waiting for whomever held the keys to permit her to leave. In any case, the path they were taking seemed too well trod to be so rarely used. 

“Well, I suppose we’ll find out,” Julian replied, turning his head around to toss her a mischievous waggle of his brows. “We can’t go back, after all; we’ve nowhere to go but down.”

As much as Aredhel didn’t like it, she knew it was true. What was waiting for them in the library? At worst, the Quaestor; at best, another locked exit. Portia was probably worried out of her mind, but Aredhel did not think she’d stuck around at the library door, waiting for them to materialize. 

Deeper and deeper they walked, beneath the castle’s foundation, then farther—unnaturally deep. There was no way to measure their progress. Even with the light in her palm, Aredhel did not trust her ability to gauge the distance they had come, nor the time they had spent descending. Her unease made any such measurements difficult. But Julian kept her steady; he took the stairs at a jaunty pace and Aredhel swallowed her reservations, drawing strength from the lightness of his mood… until, abruptly, the stairs came to a stop. 

An archway cut into the earth beckoned them into the chamber beyond, but it was pitch-black, and the darkness beyond smothered both Aredhel’s flame and Julian’s high spirits.

Even though the ground underfoot was smooth, packed earth, and although Aredhel walked lightly, her first step through the arch echoed strangely in the space. Wherever they were, the room they had arrived at must have been massive. The flame in Aredhel’s hand spit a feeble light; it did not reach the ceiling, did not even reach the walls on either side, but its glow did catch on a nearby row of torches. Wordlessly, Aredhel scattered the flame to sparks, sending one each to the torches that lined the path ahead.

Miraculously, there was some fuel on them, yet; the fire caught, and the torches flickered to life. The yellow light illuminated a high, vaulted ceiling, and cast gleaming reflections on the iron shackles fastened to the walls. The torches led from the archway through which Aredhel had come towards the center of the room, and there stood a cage-like contraption, all dull metal bars and rusted gears.

Trying for levity, Aredhel quipped, “Well, Julian, you were closer than I thought when you guessed ‘sex dungeon,’ I’ll grant you that.” 

The uncertainty in her voice flattened the humor, and Julian did not laugh… but when Aredhel took another hesitant step deeper into the chamber, he followed behind her. 

As they neared the center of the room, Aredhel was able to make out more of the apparatus before them; it was not a cage, she realized, but some kind of lift. It was suspended from the ceiling by a long chain, and there was a seam in the ground surrounding it, as though it was designed to be lowered. Julian grasped the metal enclosure surrounding the lift and jostled it, trying to open the grate. But the gesture was futile: the bars shook, but the grate did not budge in its track.

“Well, that’s that, I guess,” Julian said, with a put-on note of disappointment. “I hope you’ve strong calves, Aredhel; the going will be longer on the back way up than it was on the way down.” He turned on his heel to leave. “Best not to delay!”

But Aredhel remained, rooted to the spot. The light was so dim—her magic fought with her, but she was able to call a small flame to her palm to shed some more light on the lift before her.

And there it was—first of all—the reason Julian couldn’t get the grate open: it was locked. They hadn’t seen it when they had been casting their own shadows ahead of them, but with the light in her palm, Aredhel could see that there was a keyhole set in a plaque on the center on the cage. Also embossed on the plaque was a message: 

_ Bloody hands may turn the key. Know the weight of your sins and enter. _

“Julian.” 

Aredhel spoke softly; his name, that’s all. She did not know what else to say, didn’t have the words to describe the feelings of dread and grief and emptiness, and worst of all,  _ inevitability _ , as though such grief had always been sharpening its claws for her, or had lived always in the darkness inside of her, waiting for the right moment to strike. All of these feelings poured into her as her eyes ran over the words, reading a second and then a third time by the light in her palm as she slipped her free hand into her pocket and closed her fingers around the oily key she’d taken from her desk. When she pulled it out, the metal gleamed, an unfriendly glint like eyes in the woods, watching just beyond the glow of a campfire.

Aredhel did not insert it straight away; instead, she turned to Julian. He had grown still, and he was staring at the key in her palm with unconcealed apprehension. The glow of the torches cast flickering shadows on his face, deepened the hollows of his cheeks, and the socket around his eye. His iris was the grey of a half-smothered hope, ash-cold in a pit of night black fear. 

He did not look as bad as he’d looked in the library, but he didn’t look comfortable, either. Aredhel extinguished the flame in her palm and reached for his cheek, her hand still warm with magic. “Are you alright?” she asked. Then, directly and with more scrutiny, “How is your head?”

Julian’s eye glanced between the key in her hand and the elevator behind her, as if unable to decide which he liked least. “Yes. I don’t know. Cloudy? I think, but—but no pain. Not yet.”

“Will you tell me?” Aredhel asked, weaving her fingers into his hair and smoothing his curls back from his forehead. “If it starts to hurt again, like it did in the library, will you tell me?”

“Hmm. I think you should be less worried about my head, and more worried about  _ that _ ,” Julian said, jerking his head towards the elevator. “It’s not exactly inviting, is it?”

“One step at a time,” Aredhel said, gently, combing her hand through his hair. Again, she asked, “You’re alright, though?”

Julian reached up to catch her hand in his own, then lifted it to his face and brushed his lips against her knuckles. “I’ll be fine, Aredhel,” he said, and kissing her fingers, “but I like that thing less the longer I look at it. Something about it is giving me the heebie-jeebies. Maybe we can just… get this over with? The sooner the better.”

Aredhel couldn’t argue with that. Better to proceed, or figure out another way forward; standing around would do them no good. She squeezed Julian’s hand before she released it, then turned from him and slipped the key into the lock. 

The shank slid neatly into place; Aredhel would have sworn she heard the tumblers of the lock click. When she turned the key, however, it did not budge. Vexed, she gave it a second try—perhaps the lock was rusted?—then a third, to no avail. She ran through all the lockpicking enchantments Asra had taught her, but nothing greased the going. Faust, who had been so helpful in the library, now coiled comfortably in one of Aredhel’s pockets, silent. 

Julian’s frown deepened. “ _ That’s _ the worst sign of all: that even you, my darling, armed with all your wiley magic tricks, your nimble fingers and all the lockpicking skills of a jewel thief, can’t get the door to budge.” 

Aredhel turned her head to glance at him out of the corner of her eye; he was standing with his arms folded, hip cocked. 

“Do you believe me now?” he asked, gesturing to the enclosure. “That’s not normal, right? You ought to have been able to open it, key or none.”

Julian was right, but Aredhel was not ready to admit it. “What, do you think it’s cursed?” she asked, playfully, turning back to the lock and squinting at it in the dark. “You must have some remarkable faith in magic—or at least, in mine—to take my failure as an omen of foreboding.” 

“Aredhel! My faith in you is absolute,” Julian said. His hands came to her shoulders, warm and light, and his thumbs kneaded the muscles between her shoulders. “Which is why, I am sure, with your inimitable magic and your sharp mind, we can find plenty of evidence to prove your innocence, here or elsewhere. But ‘ _ elsewhere _ ’ is my strong preference.”

His thumbs against her shoulders felt heavenly. Aredhel had not realized how tightly her muscles were wound until Julian had started digging his fingers in to them, loosening the knots. “Bribery,” she said, the word nearly a groan in the long, low way his fingers drew it from her. 

“Precisely,” Julian answered, shifting his hands to work at the tension in her shoulders with all ten of his fingers. “Is it working?”

“...Yes.  _ Fine _ , alright.” 

Julian had a point. After all, they hadn’t been to the Count’s wing yet, although Aredhel did not know if such a visit would still be possible; for all she knew, it might already be evening. Her pride was wounded by her failure, but whatever she felt that she had to prove to herself by pitting her wits against an inanimate object, it was less important than seeing Julian safe, and reconnecting with Portia. 

“We’ll get out of here in a second,” Aredhel told Julian, conceding. “I just want to give it one more try first.”

“If you insist.”

Aredhel took the key from the lock and held it flat in her palms, studying it: the elaborate bow of the handle, the gem glittering like the wings of an insect, the sharpness of the teeth. It was not failure itself that vexed her—it was the inexplicability of the failure. It just didn’t make sense. The key fit in the lock, she was sure of that much. Why, then, wouldn’t it turn? Her brows creased, and she pulled her cheek between her teeth, biting down on it lightly as she thought. Softly, under her breath, Aredhel repeated the words:

“ _ Bloody hands must turn the key…” _

An idea occurred to her, and she did not stop to think whether it was a good one before she seized it. She tucked the key back into her pocket, only to free her hands. Rummaging through her bag, she shoved aside all the careful work she’d prepared the day before—incense and herbs, talismans, runes—until her fingers brushed, then closed around the smooth handle of her knife. She pulled it from her bag and slipped it easily out of its sheath.

Aredhel did not know the weight of her sins. She did not know their number, or nature; so much about her past was still hidden from her. But blood? Blood, she could give. 

“Aredhel?” Julian called behind her, uncertainty in his voice like the unsteady light skating on the edge of the blade. “What are you— _ wait, don’t! _ ”

Too late. Before the warning was past Julian’s lips Aredhel had put the tip of the knife to her finger. Her skin rent easily—she always kept her blade sharp—and loosed a trickle of blood. As it ran down her fingers and along her wrist, she pressed her wounded finger to the key’s red gem, squeezing until a ribbon of blood ran down from bow to teeth. Then, she returned the key to the lock.

This time, it turned with ease. The grate slid free, sprung back, rattling; in front of her, the small enclosure lay open. 

The victory rang hollow as the rattling of the lift. Only blood had opened this door; whatever lay below, powerful magic protected the entrance. All the way down the stairs, Aredhel had been apprehensive… now that the lift was open, she could not quite bring herself to climb into it. The turning of her stomach told her that if she did, she would not like where the lift brought her.

And yet…

And yet the key had turned at the taste of  _ her  _ blood; they had found they key on the desk that was once  _ hers _ . Aredhel had spent three years wondering what had happened to her, trying to recover her past, and in all that time she had never been so close to her answers… however terrible they might turn out to be.  

Something cold moved her, pushed Aredhel past her fear and second-guessing. There was no way, now, that she could return the way she came. Only forward—only deeper. No matter what she found at the bottom of the lift—no matter how hideous or dark—it was a small piece of her truth, and she owed it to herself to claim it. Any less would be cowardly. 

Summoning her strength, she stepped past the threshold. 

As soon as she had cleared the enclosure, it slammed shut, as if by magic. Aredhel’s heart leapt into her throat. What kind of a device  _ was  _ this, that it would slam so fiercely shut behind her,  _ trap _ her—

But when she turned, she found the enclosure was not shut—not entirely. Julian had just managed to wedge his hand between the bars and the lock and was holding it open, though it looked as though it pained him to do so—the magic of the lift fought hard against his strength. 

“Aredhel,” Julian managed, short of breath and through gritted teeth, “I’m not sure this is such a great idea.”

The enclosure of the lift was small; it was easy to reach for Julian, to wrap her fingers around his where they grasped the bars. Gently, but pointed, she asked him, “This is where everything has led. It may not be a great idea, but have you got a better one?”

It was so dim—she could barely make out Julian’s face with his back to the torches, just the glow of light around his jaw and the faintest prick of it reflected in his eye. Aredhel lifted her hand to his face, to feel his sorrow lines and try to smooth them.

“I have to, Julian,” she said told him, somberly. “My answers—”

“ _ Damn _ your answers,” Julian replied. “They aren’t worth your life. It’s—Aredhel, there’s something  _ terrible _ down there. I… I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s bad; please, Aredhel, don’t go down there _. _ ”

_ ‘There’s something  _ terrible _ down there.’  _ Aredhel knew it, too. Magic and intuition told her she stood on the grounds of tragedy, the psychic stain of the chamber that lurked beneath seeping up around her feet. Below her was a place soaked in such despair, such suffering—such cruelty and hopelessness. She only hoped she had not been the one inflicting it. 

Still, reluctant as Aredhel was to brave the lift alone, she would if she must. She had to go. 

That did not mean, however, that Julian had to come with her.

“Julian, it’s okay.” She smoothed over his forehead, stroked his high cheekbones. “I’ll only have a short look around, then I’ll come right back up. I promise, I won’t leave you behind.”

Julian pulled back, just enough for the light to catch his face as he blinked. “What do you—no.  _ No.”  _ Disbelief turned to horror, then denial. “Aredhel, you can’t mean to go down there alone!”

The shadows leapt on the walls, snapping at the torchlight like the jaws and teeth of hungry hounds.

“What happens if you can’t get back up?” Julian demanded. “Or if your head starts to hurt again, and you’ve no one to look after you? If something happens to you—if you get hurt…” here his voice cracked, an ugly sound of his despair tearing at his composure, “if you get hurt, I won’t even know it.”

“I’ll be careful,” Aredhel told him. Then, with a sly grin she forced for his benefit, she added, “And clever.”

Julian grimaced. “All the ‘ _ cleverness _ ’ in the world won’t give you another set of eyes. We’re supposed to stick together.”

But as Julian argued with Aredhel, he seemed to realize the impossibility of his position. His arm was trembling now; his grip on the grate was failing. One way or another, soon, he would be forced to let go. 

Julian grit his teeth, cursed under his breath. Then his face set. 

“Move over.”

That was all the warning he gave before he stepped into the cage, cramming into the enclosure beside Aredhel. As soon as he’d made it inside, the door slammed shut behind him. 

If the lift had looked small before, now it felt suffocating; it was abundantly clear that it had not been built for two. Aredhel and Julian were slender enough to squeeze in, chest-to-chest, but there was barely space left between them to breathe. The sudden proximity shocked Aredhel; Julian had her in something like a bear hug, his arms and legs around her, if they were not pressed against her. 

Before she could find her tongue (an impossible task when each breath brought her chest against his, her thighs against his)—before she could suggest that she send the lift back up for him, if he really wanted to descend with her so badly—Aredhel felt Julian’s hand wiggle along her waist, then behind her in the small of her back as he reached for the lever and pulled it. 

Gears groaned; rust flaked; the lift came to life, and lowered them through the floor. The light was faint above them—then it was gone. Blackness swallowed them. 

Wedged somewhere behind Julian’s shoulder, Aredhel summoned a magelight. The dark nearly smothered it—something unnatural about it, or within it—but still it cast a faint blue, enrough at least to see the bars around them so they did not hit their heads against them. 

It was darker, down here, and easier to speak to Julian, now that she could barely make out his face. “You could have told me you’d decided to come with me,” Aredhel said, at last. “I would have just sent the lift back up.”

“Mm.” She could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest against hers, and she was grateful for the darkness, which hid the look on her face. “I don’t trust like that. There was no way to know if you  _ could  _ send the lift up, or if I could get the key to work, blood or none. And… I couldn’t risk that.”

It was too much to bear: how protective he was of her, his proximity to her. Aredhel felt she deserved none of it. If anyone had suffered since they had entered the castle, it had been him. He had flinched from the sight of the key in the library. And at the elevator… what had  _ he  _ been afraid of? Now, he was so close to her… she wished, almost, that he had not followed her at all.

_ ‘But then again,’ _ Aredhel realized, with a sigh of surrender and understanding,  _ ‘if I had been in his shoes, I would have done the exact same thing.’  _  If it had been  _ Julian  _ who had climbed into the lift, and she had a chance to climb in with him, of course,  _ of course _ she would have followed him. 

She stopped fighting his nearness; she kissed her forehead against his cheek. “Thank you, Julian.” 

“Don’t mention it, Aredhel. I did promise to help you, after all.” She felt his breath on her ear, against her hair. He added, jovially, “Besides, if I’d stayed behind, I’d just give Asra more cause to think I’m useless. Can’t have that, can I?”

“Don’t listen to Asra,” Aredhel murmured. “If I had, I’d still be in Nopal—I’d never have met you. And that would really be a tragedy.” Her other hand was trapped somewhere behind Julian’s back; as much as she was able, her fingers brushed his spine through his shirt. “I hope that isn’t why you did it.”

“Of course not,” Julian replied. “Though I suspect he’ll be furious with me anyway: for letting you come down here in general, alone or otherwise.”

Thinking of Asra, her forgotten once-sibling, reminded Aredhel of Julian’s family. She groaned, low. “Portia’s going to kill me, for dragging you into this.” 

Julian laughed aloud. “Don’t flatter yourself, Aredhel,” he told her, a dry humor in his voice. “If she beats Asra to it—and knowing Pasha, she probably will—she’s going to kill  _ both _ of us.”

Then Aredhel laughed, too. The force of it pressed her back against the iron bars, her mirth pinning her to metal, shaking her body against Julian’s, but she didn’t mind. No doubt they’d get an earful from Asra and Portia both, when this was over… but for now it felt good, to laugh in the face of the darkness into which they were descending.

“Ahhh, that laugh. I love it,” Julian said, pressing the curve of his smile against her temple. His voice was soft as down. “Don’t worry, Aredhel. Everything will be alright.”

He was so sweet to her, so gentle. When her laughter died down Aredhel found she was pressing less firmly against the bars behind her. Julian’s arms were fully around her now, and she was flush against him, her face close to buried in his neck.

It had been so easy and natural (in the dark, where they couldn’t quite see) to simply grow close to one another. 

But now Aredhel had realized, and it was impossible then not to think of that morning, in bed. The flush of Julian’s cheeks and the sounds he had made in impatience, and satisfaction. The desperate way his hands had moved over her—no, no, she was  _ not  _ doing this now. Not now, when they were riding down to the center of the earth, or Hell, or gods-only-know where. 

She nuzzled her face against his neck affectionately to show no hard feelings were meant by it, then withdrew, taking what partial inches the lift afforded between them when she pressed back against the bars. But distance did nothing to push the thought of him from her mind, the smell of him. She held within her both the memory of wanting him, and her present desire, trying to smother both of them and having minimal success with either. 

Julian saved her; he broke their silence, though not, perhaps, the awkwardness between them.

“I am sorry about this morning, you know,” he said, sounding genuinely remorseful about it, and not nearly as self-deprecating as he had been on the path to the palace. “I don’t mean to be so uneven with you: hot one minute, cold in the next. Really, I swear. Obviously, I am…” Julian’s voice trailed off, and he laughed, nervously. “I am  _ very _ attracted to you. But… you’re right. It isn’t about you, it’s about me. I’m the one who isn’t ready.” He sighed. “I’m sorry. I just need some time.”

“It’s okay,” Aredhel told him, and meant it. Whatever Julian’s reasons, he was entitled to them; Aredhel would not push him. “You want time? You can have it, as much of it as you need. Besides, probably best for us to wait, anyway, until the Countess isn’t set on hanging me anymore. Right?”

“Right.” 

“Although, speaking of the Countess, I have to admit…” Aredhel sighed, tilting her head back against the bars. “I really can’t wait for all of this to be over. The running, the hiding. You made it almost fun at first, but it’s exhausting.”

“I know. We deserve a break, don’t we? Soon, with any luck.” The magelight glittered on something around his mouth—teeth—the curve of his lips; Julian was smiling. “I can’t wait to take you out.”

“Take me out?” Aredhel repeated, trying to speak around the fluttering, girlish delight Julian’s suggestion filled her with. “What happened to running away?”

“Even if it comes to that,” Julian said, his thumbs tracing circles on her waist. “There are theaters, dance halls, and bars in cities other than this one. Vistas for picnicking.” He turned his own head in the light and Aredhel could make out a little more of his smile: it was crooked, devilish, intoxicating. “I’m going to woo you so well, Aredhel Mooney, you won’t know what hit you. Just heap romantic gestures onto you until you can’t bear it any longer.”

By now she was flushing with pleasure; she prayed that in the magelight, Julian couldn’t tell. “What makes you think I can bear any of it?” she challenged. She couldn’t remember the last time she felt so young, so hopelessly lost in what she wanted but did not know how to chase. Without entirely meaning it, she told Julian, “Gestures are just that—gestures. They can be empty.”

Julian laughed. The force of it pressed her harder against the ironwork, the bars digging against her ribs, but she didn't mind. She loved his laugh, too. “Mine aren’t,” he told her, when his laughter settled back into his easy grin. “You may poke fun, Miss Mooney, but I think you have a secret romantic side to you. I’ll find it yet. Trust me, it’s one of my specialties.”

Aredhel grinned. She had nothing but faith in him, though she wasn’t going to make it easy. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Yes, that’s precisely my point. I will try, and you’ll love it.” Aredhel felt his eyes on her in the dim light, and wondered if perhaps the magelight hid less of her face than she thought. Julian’s voice lilted flirtatiously: “What was it you said to me this morning? Oh yes. I will ‘sweep you off your feet’… since you believe me to be so experienced at it.”

She had no defense against that. It left a feeling inside her like molten gold, thick and too hot but positively  _ glowing _ , an ancient and ferocious fire in the center of her. Maybe it was because they hadn’t had it yet—so much of their time in public together, Aredhel had been glamored—but now, the idea of being free with him… to go out in the world on his arm, wearing her own face; to embrace him, to kiss him in full view of anyone who was around to see them… that sounded like an absurdly high honor. She wanted it so badly she could barely speak of it.

Julian hummed, a warm sound of contentment. “Ghosts, haunted houses, god-knows-what beneath us—Mazelinka was right, you are trouble. But the good kind,” he clarified, then dipped his head towards hers and pressed a kiss to her brow.

_ ‘You’re trouble yourself.’  _ The words were perched on the tip of her tongue, but before she could get them out, her hand shot to her nose and mouth and covered both.

The air had changed; the smell of something foul was drifting up from below them, strong enough that Aredhel had to fight the urge to retch. “What  _ is _ that?” she asked, as incredulous as she was repulsed. 

Julian was stiff beside her; he’d smelled it, too. “Death,” he said. “That’s what death smells like.”

The lift thudded to a stop. Something—not Aredhel’s will, not her magic—extinguished the magelight in her palm. The enclosure screeched open.

There was nothing to suggest where they had arrived—there was no light. Aredhel couldn’t make out anything in the gloom ahead. She tried to recall the magelight to her hand, but there was something thick and oily and oppressive about the dark—it smothered her magic. 

Julian released her, and stepped into the darkness.

“Julian!” 

One step and he had vanished; the dark was that total. Aredhel’s voice was thorny with panic, briars stretching long, hoping to snag on something, anything. Aredhel had no fear of the dark, but the fact that she was unable to perform simple magicks like the summoning of light—that  _ did _ make her afraid. There was no telling where they had come, how vast the room they had arrived in; Aredhel feared she would lose Julian in it if they did not stick together.

“I’m right here,” Julian answered, unhelpfully. His voice sounded close, though Aredhel couldn’t quite tell the direction it was coming from. “Here, take my hand.”

Groping blindly, Aredhel fanned her fingers and waved her hand in the darkness. After a few agonizing moments of her hand swinging to and fro, catching nothing, her forearm grazed his; Julian’s fingers found her elbow, then her wrist, then her hand. He held it tightly, then tugged. “Come on.”

Aredhel had no idea how Julian was guiding them—she couldn’t see six inches in front of her face. Was it memory that moved him? Then, in the terrible, silent dark she heard something skittering. She nearly jumped out of her skin before she recognized the sound: Julian’s fingertips, tapping on a wall he’d discovered to their right as he fumbled forward.

“Aha,” Julian said, triumphantly, coming to a stop. “I’ve found a torch. With any luck, we can still light it. I’m just going to let go of your hand for a second, okay, Aredhel?”

Aredhel nodded before she remembered he could not see her, then agreed aloud: “Okay.”

He let her go, and then Aredhel heard him rummaging, his hands searching the pockets of his coat. Then the sound of stone on stone—strikes on a flint—a spark caught, then grew in the crown of the torch. 

“Much better,” Julian said. It was such a relief to see him, to be able to look at him. “Although,” he added, stretching his free hand out to Aredhel even as he took the torch down from the wall, “you are still welcome to hold my hand, if you like.”

Julian was beaming, effervescent, clearly pleased with himself.  _ ‘And he should be,’ _ Aredhel thought.  _ ‘I rely so much on my magic, I don’t even carry a flint. If he hadn’t been here, I’d be stuck in the dark.’ _

The fire glowed warm on Julian’s face. He looked golden and autumnal—his hair like the sun gleaming through crimson maple leaves—and the dark felt less fierce with his beauty now visible in it. Aredhel took his hand. 

They were in a narrow hallway, lined with torches just as the chamber above had been. Ahead of them was a massive metal door, well-rusted around its edges. Although it seemed like no one had been down here in years—there was a fine coating of undisturbed dust on the floor—when they reached the door, Julian still hesitated before he pulled it open. 

Strange dèja vu at the sight beyond: almost, at first, Aredhel thought she was back at the South End by the docks, back in Julian’s clinic. The walls were lined with pegs from which hung the very same equipment she’d seen in the closet at the clinic: aprons, gloves, beak-shaped masks and sharp medical tools. Almost, but not quite: horrified, she realized that here, those selfsame instruments and uniforms were splattered with blood.

Aredhel gave the blood-stained clothing a wide berth as she crossed the room. “I saw some of this stuff in your old clinic. What is it? The masks look so  _ weird. _ ”

“Uniforms,” Julian answered, keeping close behind her. “Safety gear. Inventions meant to keep you from contracting the plague if you come into contact with it.” He lifted the torch to get a better look at the aprons, a look of distaste on his face. “There hasn’t been a case of plague in Vesuvia in years, but all the same, Aredhel… try not to touch anything.”

Easier said than done. Unlike Julian, she didn’t have nice, thick pair of gloves, but she was not particularly keen to try and identify the least blood-stained pair on offer. She shoved her hands in her pockets to resist the temptation to pick anything up; when she reached the door on the opposite side of the room, she handled the knob through the fabric of her skirt, and once it was cracked open, she used the toe of her shoe to kick it ajar.

Beyond? Darkness—and a rush of dank, fetid air. Whatever ‘ _ death _ ’ Julian had smelt on the ride down, it was coming from this room, and it was eye-watering. Aredhel tried pulling the collar of the servant's uniform over her nose to deaden the stink, but it helped only a little. 

As she did, the room ahead sprang to light.

Through no magic of her own, one candle, then another flickered to life along the circumference of a round chandelier in the center of the room. One after another, the torches that lined the walls lit up. Whatever had been suppressing Aredhel’s magic in the hall, this room held the source of it—and here, it was much more potent. 

The smell of rot and decomposition had not lessened, but curiosity beckoned Aredhel forward despite the rank odor; she took a few steps into the eerily-lit room. It was dominated in the center by a circular stage, which sat directly below the tiered chandelier. Upon the dais sat a table that—like the many other tables surrounding the dais—was fitted with leather restraints. Alongside the tables were a number of trays holding bowls, sealed jars of mysterious liquids, saws of intimidating length and girth. A number of cages stood off to the side, though Aredhel could not imagine what size or kind of creature they were designed to hold. A wooden wheelbarrow sat idle among the tables; Aredhel thought it had been painted until she realized it was merely so soaked through with blood that the wood had taken on its coppery hue. 

“It’s an operating theatre. I recognize it from pictures, but...” Julian’s words echoed strangely through the high ceilings. He approached one of the tables and took the leather restraints in hand, shuddering as his fingers brushed the metal buckle. “Usually, there’s just the table in the center,” he said, releasing the buckle and pointing to the dais. “The students observe… but I’ve never seen anything like  _ this _ . As if the head surgeon was leading a procedure the others were meant to replicate, as though they were following along…”

“What kind of procedures?” Aredhel asked.

“Autopsies, probably,” Julian said, thoughtful but troubled. “Anatomical studies. Maybe on plague victims? That would certainly explain how they were able to get so many bodies at once. But why?” His brow furrowed. “What was Lucio up to, burying this place all the way down here?”

Aredhel did not say what she was thinking: that if Lucio had built this place, he taken great pains to put it somewhere no one was likely to find it by accident. She doubted he’d go through all that trouble if he did not have something worth keeping secret. But what was it? Her eyes scanned the room, looking for clues, or anything that might jog her memory. 

Julian cried out; Aredhel spun to face him, her body tensing and ready to spring into action at the sound of his distress. “What?” she asked. “What is it?” 

“Something moved!” Julian stood stock-still a few feet away, his eye searching, restless. “Or at least—I thought I saw…”

Zigzagging between the tables to Julian’s side, Aredhel turned her eyes in the same direction as his. She saw nothing among the clutter of the table. But then, just as she was beginning to think Julian had imagined it—a trick played by the light on their already thinned nerves—a flash of red caught her eye. 

Her body was coiled like a loaded weapon—and then it was one, moving the way an arrow flies loose from a bowstring.

Her palm met the surface of the operating table so hard the impact left it stinging; the sound of it echoed in the chamber around them. Aredhel turned over her hand and cringed at the mess in it: viscous fluids and smashed exoskeleton and one still-twitching antennae, all that was left of the insect she’d crushed beneath her palm. 

“Oh. Ha.” Julian stared into her hand. His face was red; he looked a little nauseated, but mostly embarrassed. “Just a bug. Well done, Aredhel. Sorry for being so dramatic about it.”

“It’s fine, Julian. We should stay on our guard.” But Aredhel was not looking at him; her eyes trained on her palm, watching the candlelight dance on red wing fragments. She had moved so fast she’d barely seen what she killed, but based on what was left of it in her hand, it seemed to be a beetle of some kind, and a pretty big one at that. 

Strange. She’d never minded bugs in particular before, but she’d moved with such speed… something else, something old and buried in the haste with which she’d moved to kill. An old nightmare, as Julian had called it, the there-not-there of his apprehension—a terror mostly forgotten, but the fear still felt upon waking. Full of a feeling without knowing what caused it.  _ ‘Not just a bug,’ _ Aredhel told herself, and she knew it to be true, but not in a way that she could explain.

Nevermind; she’d be on the lookout for another one, but in the meantime, she wanted a better look around. There was a pile of rags on a nearby tray; Aredhel found the cleanest, then used it to wipe the remains of the beetle off her hand. Her cleaned palm did nothing, however, to dispel the unease that had settled in her limbs. When she lifted her eyes to Julian’s face, she felt that same uneasy feeling tugging at her heart… then drawing her attention to the far side of the room.

Sometimes, Asra often said, a magician could wear grooves into the world. Cast a spell so often, or visit a place so frequently that some of their magic would linger in that place long after the magician left it. 

There was nothing familiar about the barred door on the other side of the room, nothing to give it away. But behind the door, she felt her magic—old magic, more powerful than any spell she’d been capable of since her accident—calling to her. She was not the only one; curled in her pocket, she felt Faust stirring against her leg. 

Aredhel’s pulse quickened. She took off between the operating tables. “If you see any more of those things,” she called to Julian, hastily, over her shoulder, “keep away from them. Or kill them.” 

“Aredhel? Where are you going? What’s back there?”

How could she answer? She wasn’t sure yet herself. There was nothing remarkable about it: one door set in a row of many, barred on the outside, cell-like. Aredhel did not question this, only curled her fingers beneath the wood and heaved the wooden plank out of the way and wrenched the door open.

“Aredhel,  _ please _ , you don’t have any gloves—!”

But Aredhel hardly heard him. The cell beyond the door flooded with light, and Aredhel’s senses were overpowered, rushed by the sweet fragrance of spring. 

There was no cleansing the air of the smell of rot, of blood spilt and congealed, but here at least something fair and floral masked it. Roses, bone-dry and bleached of their color, hung in rows on the far wall. They were fierce and untamed things, their stems curving and wild unlike the straight, tamed kind favored for bouquets. The flowers hung on the opposite wall above the head of a small cot, unmade. Its sheets were rumpled as though it had just been slept in, though Aredhel suspected it had not been touched in years. Shelves on the wall held dusty bottles and little knick-knacks, mementos once dear to someone long gone. The only other furniture in the small room was a desk, covered in parchment and books, upset inkwells, scattered quills. A healthy coating of candle wax covered almost all of it, evidence of sleepless nights spent hunched over and working by candlelight. 

None of this held any interest to her; Aredhel’s eyes were fixed only on the roses. Just behind them, shimmering at the edge of her perception, was her magic—old magic, but undeniably hers. Aredhel shouted over her shoulder, unable to keep the excitement out of her voice. 

“There’s a door here!” 

More precisely, it was a portal: a small tear in the world, magical in nature. Asra had created a few just like this in Nopal. On the back wall of their adobe was one such portal that would take them to their favorite spot for stargazing; three miles away in the blink of an eye. 

Aredhel had never managed magic of that difficulty herself—or at least, not since her accident. She recognized her magic, though it was older than anything she remembered about herself: she had created this hidden door more than three years ago.

All she cared about was what it meant: they would not have to go back up the way they came. Her intuition told her that wherever the magic led, it had to be better—or in any case, the air fairer—than the dungeon laboratory. When she raised her hands to test it, however, she found the portal was not cooperative, as though disuse has rusted the magic shut. 

“It’s jammed,” Aredhel said, raising her voice so Julian would hear her in the theater. “The magic is stubborn. It might take me a moment to get it open, but we have a way out! I don’t even care where it leads, it can’t be worse than that elevator again.”

So glad was she in this knowledge that Aredhel did not stop consider why the portal was here, or where  _ here  _ was _.  _ Nor did she hear Julian enter the cell behind her, wary and curious. She focused only on unlocking the magic. Her attention did not waver until she heard Julian’s voice behind her, cracked and distraught.

“A-Aredhel...? It hurts, now.”

He was standing in front of the desk, his eyes glued to a leather folio of loose parchment that lay open atop it. He stood six feet tall, but Julian had never looked as small as he seemed now: his shoulders hunched, his spine curved, as though he was curling his body around a wound. One hand clamped tightly over his mouth; his other arm he wrapped around his stomach, holding himself, but even that grip did not steady him enough to still his shaking. 

Aredhel snaked an arm around his waist, and Julian folded against her, hiding his face in her hair. Each breath he took was a labor, a great shuddering. She lay her hand on the back of his head, cradling it, letting him turn her into a sanctuary, a safe place to hide. Discretely as she could, she slid her eyes to the papers on the desk, the desk she’d hardly given a second glance when she walked in.

Immediately, Aredhel wished she hadn’t.

Too late—Julian felt her body tense and he pulled away from her, eye wet, face pale. “It wasn’t autopsies,” he said, shaking his head, the pitch of his whisper so panicked Aredhel could barely pick out the words. “They—we— _ I _ was…”

His gloved hand fell to the parchment on the desk; his fingers stroked the drawing like he couldn’t quite believe it. Aredhel didn’t blame him; it was, almost, too horrible to believe. The sketch, executed in ink, depicted the operating theater in use. Three figures, each of them wearing the same curved masks and blood-splattered aprons, crowded around one of the tables. The leather restraints held a cadaver still against the wood. 

_ ‘...No. A cadaver does not need to be tied down.’ _

The pain in their face—the agony twisting their mouth—made it impossible to guess if they were male or female, young or old. Their body was so mutilated it was no more help: they lay naked on the table, but their skin had been rent from neck to navel, and was pulled back from their torso, revealing the sinew and organs beneath. 

None of this, however, turned Aredhel’s stomach so much as caption beneath, written in a familiar hand… the letters so steeply slanted, so illegible that Aredhel could not make out the words. 

There was no denying it: it was Julian’s handwriting, Julian’s drawing.

Julian’s  _ office. _

_ ‘Why did my magic lead me here?’ _

“I drew this,” Julian gasped, horrified, his fingers trembled against the parchment. “This is my handwriting. My notes.” He lifted his face and took in the dried flowers hanging on the wall, the clutter, the knick knacks on the shelves… the disheveled bed. Incredulously, Julian added, “I  _ slept _ here.”

He flung back the thin sheets from the cot, saw the way it sagged in the center where a body might once have lain… asleep or awake, sleepless nights spent in restless tossing. “Did I… live here?” Julian murmured, running his fingers through his hair, tugging it roughly. “When I closed the clinic, is this where I went? To partake in this? To… to  _ hurt _ people, when there was suffering enough in the city already?” 

“Julian, the door bars from the  _ outside, _ ” Aredhel said, taking his hand by the wrist and gently prying it from his scalp. “We can’t know what any of this really means—we don’t have the whole picture.” 

Julian only shook his head, his mouth caught between a grimace and a snarl. “All this time, I thought I was a coward. I thought I fled the city out of weakness, a sense of self-preservation. But this?” Again he shook his head, and his bottom lip quivered, and his eye shined wet. “This is even worse. This is  _ despicable. _ Aredhel, I swear, I would  _ never _ —”

His voice cracked and he hid his face from her, turning towards the wall. When he exhaled, unsteady, the force of his breath rustled the dried petals and long-dead leaves that hung there.

“But I must have.” Julian’s head hung low; his hands were clenched to fists at his sides. “Even though it goes against everything I believe—everything I thought I am, I was….”

Aredhel reached for his shoulder and turned him to face her, then laid both her palms flat on his chest. “We don't know anymore about who you were than we do about who I used to be, about whether or not I’ve killed a man.” She lifted a hand to Julian’s face, brushed the tears from his cheeks. “You’re always so eager to believe the worst about yourself. Don’t condemn yourself for something you can’t remember, something we can’t possibly understand, not without knowing more.”

“That’s different, Aredhel. This,” he said, gesturing to the desk, the knick knacks, the auburn hairs on the cot, “is far stronger evidence than what the Countess has to prove your guilt. We were experimenting on living people— _ nothing _ excuses it. This, this is…” 

Julian stumbled, then rushed back to the desk, nearly tripping over his own legs between his eagerness and dread. His hands shuffled through the drawings: cross-sections of brains, anatomical diagrams, dissected eyes… “I did this.” Julian’s voice was quiet, and small, but certain. “I did this. And for everything I’ve lost, for all the pain I’ve suffered since… I deserve it. I deserve  _ worse _ .”

Aredhel took Julian’s hand in her own and pulled it away from the drawings; Julian had seen enough. She would not let him hurt himself with more pictures. “The key was on my desk,” she told him, her voice measured and calm. “Against the wall? That is  _ my _ magic. Do I also deserve to be punished for the evidence that, once upon a time, I too came down here?”

Julian scoffed. “No, of course not. But you…”  His brow knit, and the corners of his mouth turned down. “You’re right. Why  _ did _ you have the key? Why would you have been down here? Did we….” 

His gaze drifted to the desk, then back to Aredhel’s face; nausea and horror fought for claim over his features. “No.” Julian turned back to the desk, hands shaking as he tore frantically through the drawings, studying the faces. “No, no, no no  _ no– _ ”

But that was impossible. Whatever Julian had done—whatever Aredhel had been doing down here—she did not think she’d been strapped to one of those tables. It did not look like an experience one was likely to survive. 

“Julian.” 

He did not stop, did not look at her.

“ _ Julian. _ ” Aredhel took his wrists in her hands and, for the second time, pulled him away from the folio. “Look at me. Please.”

He did, helpless and hopeless; something in Aredhel roared like an avalanche, demanding she sate his lack of both.

“Come here. Give me your hand.” She placed it on her chest, just above her heart. Julian’s eye widened; Aredhel held his gaze and told him, “Breathe with me. Slowly. In… and out.”

For a few breaths, Julian did. But then his eye watered again, and he made a sound like a wheeze; he shook his head, as if to hide his face behind his curls. “I can’t, I can’t—”

“You can. You trust me, don’t you? Then trust me: you can. In through your nose… hold it… then out, slowly, a little bit at a time. Good! That’s perfect. Nice and slow… out.”

Gradually, Julian’s breathing evened. The tension emptied from his shoulders, from his spine… then he sagged against her. Aredhel wrapped her arms around him and found him still trembling, not from fear but exhaustion. He had been wild, he had been tearing at his hair; his despair had worn him out, and now less full of it, it was like he had deflated. “Thank you, Aredhel.” 

“Anytime.” She turned her head to plant a kiss on his temple.

For a few breaths they simply stood like that: Julian curled around her, safe in Aredhel’s embrace and warmed by the glow of her unshakeable faith in him. Around him, her arms were solid and strong. Julian sighed against her neck, dragged the tip of his nose against her skin as he pressed himself closer to her. “What do we do now?”

Aredhel pressed a second kiss to Julian’s temple. “My magic on the far wall—it’s a kind of door, but it needs to be unlocked. That may take some time. I’d also like to look around this room a little more, but I’m in no rush.” Better for her to do it alone, and not until Julian had calmed. “We can also just sit here and hold each other a little longer, if you like.”

Julian groaned. Aredhel felt his lips vibrating against her skin. “No. We shouldn’t waste anymore time.”

“I thought maybe you could wait outside.” As far as Aredhel was concerned, Julian had seen enough. She counted them both lucky he hadn’t reacted worse when they’d discovered this room was once his… but she wasn’t keen to push that luck any further. “Does that sound alright to you?”

Julian hesitated before answering. “It feels shameful to say so, but yes, I think I’d prefer that.” He straightened, hesitated, then kissed Aredhel’s temple, his lips so gentle she barely felt them brush her skin. 

“I’ll be just outside. Don’t take too long, darling,” Julian said. “The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

“I won’t,” Aredhel told him. “I’ll be done as soon as I can, Julian, I promise.” Julian squeezed her hand, then stepped out of the cell. 

Truthfully, Aredhel didn’t know what she hoped to find in his old desk. The leather folio held only more gruesome drawings and blood-splattered notes. But when she heaved the massive folio out of the way, she found something much more interesting underneath. 

Here, as at his flat, Julian’s desk was covered with drawings of ravens. 

Aredhel felt that familiar nudge, the gentle prod of the Arcana pushing her in the right direction. Her hands hastily shuffled the papers around—flocks of ravens in flight, or perched in trees, or silhouetted against the twilight—some drawings refined and polished, life-like, and some hardly more than sketches, lines shaky as if drawn by a trembling hand. Aredhel collected them into a pile, then set them aside. There had to be something else here… it was calling to her, reaching out for her magic. She flipped through the pages of every book. Groped blindly beneath the surface of the desk, in the hidden pockets of the carpentry where she’d found her key—nothing. Pulled open the top drawer—

Froze.

In the shallow tray of the top drawer of the desk sat another drawing, not of a raven, not exactly, but a raven-headed man. An Arcana, to be precise. 

“Oh, Julian,” Aredhel whispered, softly enough that he would not hear her in the room beyond. The drawing was a near perfect likeness of the Arcana, but a heavy hand had drawn it; in places the lines of the quill had torn through the parchment. Actually, the whole drawing looked like it had once been terribly wrinkled, as though it had been crumpled and tossed aside. The paper still showed the creases, but now it was smooth; someone had taken great care to press it flat again. In some places the lines of the drawing were worn, as if someone had run their fingers over it so many times they’d blurred the ink with the oil of their hands. 

_ ‘Julian, what were you doing?’ _

Maybe the desk still held more clues—some answers, instead of more questions. But when she tore her eyes from the drawing of the Hanged Man, she saw that the only document left in the desk was not written in Julian’s handwriting: she recognized the writing instantly as hers. She felt light-headed; she planted a hand on the desk to support her weight as she read the impossible words:  _ ‘Dear Doctor Devorak…’ _

“Aredhel! Someone’s coming!”

Aredhel’s head shot up just in time to see Julian hurrying into the room, closing the cell door shut behind them. Privately, Aredhel feared it would not matter much—all the other cells had the doors barred. If someone came in, if someone had followed them down here, it would be fairly obvious where they were hiding.

Julian crouched low to the ground, where he would not be seen from the window cut into the door. “Have you been working on the door magic at all? Because it would be great if we could vanish, like, oh, right about now.”

He had not seen the letter, or he had not recognized it for what it was. Hastily, Aredhel took that and the drawing both, and shoved them into her bag—she’d deal with  _ that _ later, once the present danger had passed. “Won’t be a minute,” she told him, more confidently than she felt. She walked up to the wall and pushed against the magic, but it remained stuck, like a door jammed in the humidity. 

Aredhel frowned.  _ Why _ was it being so stubborn? She bit her lip, feeling her face heat with embarrassment. Never had it been more painfully obvious that she was half the magician she used to be than now, unable to unlock the same magic she’d only cast a few years ago—and the casting was  _ infinitely _ more complicated. 

Beside her, Julian shouted in alarm, and wrapped his arms around her leg. Aredhel followed his gaze to the door—and saw she was too late. Someone stood just outside, grinning menacingly at them through the barred window. Their irises were red, and their skin bore a greenish tint, but they there was a look of ferocious vitality about them, like a cat that has trapped a mouse. 

“You made it farther than I thought you would, witch,” they said. “But now it is time for you to hand Doctor 069 over to me.” 

Around her knees, Julian moaned; that was all the confirmation Aredhel needed to know that, no matter what the Quaestor was calling him, it was  _ Julian _ they were after. She was certain it was the Quaestor, though they had not identified themselves; Aredhel recognized their voice at once as the same one that had accosted Portia outside the library. 

But hand Julian over?  _ ‘Fat chance that’s going to happen.’ _

Aredhel held her hand flat against the wall, working her magic against the jammed portal even as she kept an eye on the Quaestor. Technically there was nothing keeping them out of the room—Aredhel got the sense they were enjoying toying with her and Julian. “You lay a finger on him,” she retorted, acidly, “and I’ll hex you so badly it’ll blow your damn arm off. You’ll end up just like your dead Count.”

“Oh, I very much doubt you are capable of that,” the Quaestor said, and their grin widened. Their teeth were filed to points. “You can’t even get your own door to open, little witch. The years have been unkind to you. But not,” they added sweetly, “to me.”

There was something not quite right about Valdemar; Aredhel had been distracted, but she still should have heard when the Quaestor entered. There had been no hint of the door opening—footsteps—breathing— _ nothing, _ until they had materialized outside door. There was an unnatural stillness about them, an eerie and predatory grace. 

“Why do you want Julian?” Aredhel challenged. “I’m the one who murdered the Count. What use is he to you?”

“Aredhel, no!” Julian hissed.

The Quaestor lifted their nose in the air and waved their hand dismissively in front of the bars. “Everyone dies—dying is so  _ ordinary. _ ” Valdemar bared their teeth, smiling and snarling at once. “But you—you are not ordinary, are you? Murder or no murder, you are a  _ thief. _ And I know what was stolen, and I know the price that was paid for it.” Their smile mellowed into something saccharine; they batted their eyelashes. “I intend to find out  _ exactly _ what that looks like. You can’t run forever. For now, however, my interest lies only with the doctor. Count yourself lucky and steal another day for yourself.”

Julian’s hand wound tighter in the fabric of her dress, and Aredhel felt her heart pound with the fierce protectiveness, an instinct that was beginning to feel as familiar to her as her own skin—

—with a faint tingle, the portal behind her opened. 

Aredhel didn’t know where it led, or why she had put it here—but wherever it took them, it had to be better than this.

Still, perhaps she could  _ steal  _ one more answer. She challenged the Quaestor. “If I’m a thief, then what did I steal?”

But Aredhel was shocked to find Valdemar was already backing away from the bar, their eyes narrowed with suspicion. It was like Valdemar could see, or sense somehow, that she’d successfully unlocked the portal at last. The door to the cell opened—Valdemar was going to try to stop them, or maybe to follow them through. 

Aredhel would allow neither.She dropped to the floor, and wrapped an arm around Julian’s waist. “Trust me.” 

Without waiting for an answer, without further warning, she pulled him through the wall. 

  
  


It was cool, for summer, but compared to the dark, undisturbed air of the dungeon, the night in the garden felt so  _ warm. _

Aredhel turned and shoved her fists into the portal. Unlocking gates was one thing—creating them another—but breaking things, sabotaging them? That was easy. Aredhel was a calamity walking. She wrenched the magic, twisting it in upon itself until it was tangled, useless. If Quaestor Valdemar wanted to pursue them, they’d have to take the long way around—back up the elevator, through the library, and out of the castle. By then, she and Julian would be long gone. 

Once the portal was destroyed, she knelt in the grass beside him. He had covered his face with his hands and was breathing hard, long legs stretched out in the dirt in front of him. She placed a hand between his shoulders. “Hey. It’s alright,” she told him, softly. “Look, Julian. We’re out. And probably not far from Portia’s.”

Julian looked. They were just outside the walls of the palace, hidden in a dark corner of the gardens, in a green copse. Aredhel heard fountain in the distance, but otherwise the night was quiet. They were off the beaten path, far from the main attractions of the garden—there was not a soul around to witness them. 

Julian only shook his head, took her hand and squeezed it tightly. “We need to go. Valdemar saw you. If they follow us—!”

“I locked—or rather, wrecked—the portal,” Aredhel told him, matter-of-factly. “They can’t come through that way. So let’s just… take a minute, catch our breath, okay? I’m not going anywhere until you’re alright.”

For a moment he looked like he might argue, but then Julian thought the better of it. He closed his mouth and took a deep breath, turning his face upwards. The sky was clear, and the stars were bright beyond the treetops. 

Lightly, Julian laughed. “That’s the second time tonight you’ve had to save me.”

“Why do you mention it?” Aredhel asked, teasing him. It was good to hear Julian laugh after their confrontation with Valdemar; she had tried not to let on, but she had been worried about him. “Are you keeping score?” 

“Do you think I’m embarrassed? Quite the contrary,” Julian said, flashing his charming grin. “You’re very loyal, aren’t you? I haven’t the faintest idea what I did to earn it, but I… I haven’t missed it, you know. All the ways you’ve protected me today,” he said, jovially. “It’s  _ devastatingly _ handsome.”

Why is  _ that, _ of all things, the smoothest thing that anyone had ever said to her? Her heart fluttered weakly in her chest. For as long as she could remember, Aredhel has been treated like something fragile, but Julian looks at her and sees strength. She’s thankful the corner of the gardens they’ve found themselves in is dark; she can feel a pleased blush creeping up her throat.

“Well, I have good news and bad news for you, then,” Aredhel said. “The good news is I do not intend to stop protecting you any time soon. But that’s also the bad news.” She fought past the blush in her cheeks to favor him with a playful grin. “You’ll have to endure my handsomeness a little longer.”

Julian dared to  _ bat his eyelashes _ at her, and the smile he returned was positively wicked. “And if I can’t—what then? If it’s too much, if I start swooning.” Eager-eyed, breathless, he added, “You’ll have to carry  _ me _ back to Portia’s, in the end.”

Aredhel grinned. “And what makes you think I’m capable of carrying you?”

Julian lifted his hands to smooth over her collar, then rounded her shoulders as if feeling out the strength in them. “You had no trouble pinning me to the bookshelves earlier,” he said, pleasantly. “Besides, you’re a magician. Creative type. Surely you have some handy magic for that kind of thing.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Aredhel asked, bewildered but undeniably pleased, not quite believing her luck. “If I just—what?—tossed you you over my shoulder, carried you off like a conqueror stealing a maiden to celebrate the victory? If I swept you up in my arms like a bride?”

Julian tugged his bottom lip between his teeth. “I wouldn’t complain, certainly.” His eyes drifted to her mouth, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Especially not if the implication is that, wherever and whenever you last set me down, you’re going to ravish me.”

Oh, gods, how Aredhel wanted to—wanted to throw Julian over her shoulder and carry him off, lavish him with affection and pleasure until he could stand no more of it and then (and only then) seek her own. She wanted to sow kisses in rows between his thighs; she wanted to wake up every morning the way she had today, with her skin pressed against his skin. 

...and then, short of breath, flushed with thought of——Aredhel wondered if she already had. 

The letter felt unreasonably heavy in her pocket. Aredhel gave herself the same advice she’d given Julian: not to jump to conclusions. She hadn’t even gotten a chance to read it before Julian had interrupted her. It could have been anything; an invoice for an order from the shop, a solicitation. 

She reminded herself she was not the same person she was three years ago. A letter in his old desk did not mean they had been particularly close. Anyway, they could not have been—Mazelinka had not recognized her, nor had Brona recognized Julian. Asra wasn’t telling her the whole truth, but that was nothing out of the ordinary. Still, thinking of the letter made her blush deepen… if only because Aredhel could not imagine having known Julian and not, in some way, having also wanted him, with his slender hips and his long hands, the quickness of his smile and warmth in his eye. 

“Ahh, Miss Mooney,” Julian purred, gleeful. “Does my eye deceive me? It would seem you are not so terribly opposed to the idea yourself.”

Aredhel came back to herself, snapping to attention. “It’s not such a terrible idea,” she told him, forcing a smile. Whatever the letter contained, she’d deal with it later; now was not the time. “Perhaps, when this is all over, I’ll give it a try. But first, we should go find Portia.”

Julian nodded. “You’re exactly right, Aredhel. It’s nearly dark—she’s probably worried sick.” Julian stood, then  helped Aredhel to her feet. He craned his neck to look up at the castle, glanced around the gardens, then laced their fingers together. “I think I know where we are. We should be able to get to Portia’s this way.” Confidently, Julian guided her out of their hidden and onto a cobbled path… and brought them face-to-face with a pair of palace guards. 

It was impossible to tell who among them was most surprised, but Julian snapped out of it first. “Run!”

Aredhel’s hand was still clasped around his; Julian pulled it so hard he nearly dislocated her shoulder, but she needed the urging. Behind them the guards were already shouting; Aredhel heard the metal of their armor, the bright chime of it as the guards pursued them. The shock wore off little by little each time her feet hit the path, as Julian sped her away, sense coming back slowly and then, she remembered,  _ ‘One of the guards had a bow.’ _

Aredhel was already weaving the magic, wondering how long she would be able to hold it (cursing her weakness, that she wasn’t magician enough to keep conjured a sufficient shield for two, to open a door) when something made impact with her back and punched the wind out of her. 

(Aredhel remembers very little of the place where she was born, where she lived before she came to Vesuvia. But she remembers the smell of salt and the dark sea, blue-grey; she remembers learning how to dive, slicing through the water, carving a path through the waves with her hands.

That’s what the arrow felt like, tearing through her lung.)

She stumbled to a stop, blinked... then saw the arrowhead sticking out of the front of her dress. The sight of it mader her lightheaded… Aredhel might have passed out, were it not for the painful jolt in her knees when she fell to the ground, and the way that impact sent the arrow shaft jostling inside of her. She could feel the wood running through ligament and lung and the pain was so total it stole her breath and wiped her vision black, and when she could see again—hear again—she found she was screaming. 

Not the only one. Julian was screaming, too. His hands were on her face, one for each cheek, and his mouth was moving, twisted… speaking, but Aredhel could not hear him. 

“Julian, listen to me,” Aredhel said, but every word was a struggle; there was not room for enough air around all the blood and each syllable rode free on a choked gurgle. “You need to go,” Aredhel told him, but Julian would not listen. 

Instead, he put his hands around the shaft of the arrow and snapped it in two. 

His fists dulled the recoil, but Aredhel still felt what was left of the shaft twinge through lung tissue; this time when she screamed, it was so loud that the sound burned her throat. 

Julian winced. “Sorry, sorry. That’s the worst part, I promise.” He rolled her onto her side. 

“Julian, wait—“

He didn’t stop. He put his palm flat on her back, shaft notched between middle- and forefinger. In one swift gesture he pulled the shaft free of her back; Aredhel heard her scream echo back at her across the gardens. 

“Stop! By order of the Countess of Vesuvia!”

Another voice, not Julian’s—one of the guards, probably. Her eyes were wild as she searched for them but Julian paid them no mind, only eased Aredhel face up again. He was so close… and yet she could barely make out the details of his face. Every breath, every movement hurt—and if something did not hurt, it felt dull and distant by comparison. Her vision blurred, darkened… but at the edges of her periphery she saw a guard standing behind Julian, sword raised. If Julian saw the guard, too, he did not care; he put his hands on the hem of her shirt and tore it clean to the arrow wound, then pulled off his gloves and pressed his hands over it tightly, trying to stave off the bleeding. 

Aredhel hoped he’d have the sense to lie about what he’d been doing with her. She hoped he’d outlive her by double, triple her years. 

“Julian.” His name came welty through the blood pooling in her mouth. “Julian, s’okay. Not your fault. You’re…”

_ ‘You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,’  _ she thought, watching the grief on his face, his ugly grimace as a sob shook him; he pressed his hands harder against her ribs. 

“I said stop!” the guard repeated, pressing the tip of his sword against Julian’s shoulder in warning. “Stand down, Doctor Devorak!”

Julian spun on the guard. “She’s dying! She hasn’t had a trial! You had no right to use that kind of violence, no one was in any danger!” He huffed, then turned back to Aredhel, teeth bared. “ _ I’m _ going to help her. You want to kill me for it? Kill me. Come on, Aredhel,” he said, covering her wound with his hands again. His voice was wet—too thick with tears—but determined. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be alright.”

Lies, pretty but lies just the same. She’d known her fate the minute the arrowhead sliced through her. It didn’t matter now. The world grew dark; there wasn’t time. 

_ ‘I love you,’  _ she wanted to say, but couldn’t. Her tongue was too heavy… and anyway, it was selfish, wasn’t it? Cruel, to give him her heart just before it stopped beating.

“Mother of god.”

One of the guards, Aredhel thought; their voice floated from somewhere above her, full of awe and a little fear. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out what they were so impressed by. 

...until, suddenly, she could see again.

Aredhel blinked. The darkness had receded, like coming out of a faint. The detail returned to the world: Julian’s eye squeezed shut as he shuddered above her; his hands pressed against her ribs, covered with blood. 

...His hands, pressed hard against her ribs, her wound—but Aredhel felt no pain. Cool relief, and a little tingling, but no pain. Julian’s cheeks were wet, his eyelashes so damp they were sticking together—and then, with a start, Aredhel saw that his uniform was soaked through with blood. 

Aredhel flew up in horror, flinging her arms around him; at first, she did not understand. Her hands groped down his back, feeling for where the guard’s blade had punctured it. When at last she found the wound, however, it lay  _ beneath _ his shirt—his uniform had not been torn at all—and it was an arrow wound, the wrong shape for a wound made by a blade. 

“Step away from her, warlock!”

Julian shocked Aredhel: he was bleeding from the gut, grimacing against the pain of his inexplicable wound, but he still had humor enough to roll his eye and favor her with a crooked smile. 

“Did you hear that, Aredhel? I’m a warlock,” he said, wheezing, fighting for each word. “We’ll have to tell Asra the good news: I’m not worthless after all.”

“Shut it!” the second guard added. He drew his blade. “Doctor Devorak, step away from the fugitive.”

Julian rolled his eyes but obeyed nonetheless, stumbling to his feet. At the sight of him, so unsteady, Aredhel leapt up, rushing to support him—

But, though she’s moved so quickly, she was in no pain. She stood frozen, staring bewildered at her torso. Julian had ripped her dress earlier; now, she peeled back the bloodied tatters from her skin. There was no trace of any wound, only the evidence of one: smeared, dried blood. But no puncture. No pain. 

She turned to Julian in bewilderment. 

He managed a weak grin. “You didn’t believe me,” he said, “but I told you, darling, that I was cursed.”


	9. fly swift and true straight to you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on, my darling little felon—quickly, my clever dearest, before anyone sees us.”

 

_ “Come on, my darling little felon—quickly, my clever dearest, before anyone sees us.” _

For the past three years—for what little of her life Aredhel can remember, beyond snatches of dark staircases hidden behind bookshelves, secret magic passageways, and heavy keys with blood between their teeth—Asra had been teaching Aredhel how to pick locks.

He would bring them back from his travels: locks both ancient and newly smithed, decorous and plain, simple and complex. When at last Asra came home from a journey, before he did anything else (sometimes even before they had a chance to say hello) he would reach into his bag and produce a new lock. Aredhel would take it and hold it to her ear, prying at it with her magic until the lock yielded. 

In all those years, she had never suspected a thing; Aredhel had never thought there was an ulterior motive for these exercises. They were meant to test the cleverness and creativity of her magic—that was all. 

Now, however, sitting in a dark cell, her ear to the cold metal of the deadbolt on the door, Aredhel knew Asra had made her pick all those locks to prepare her. All those years she had been wanted for murder, and all the while Asra was doing his damndest to make sure she had the tools to protect and defend herself if she was ever apprehended for the crime of which she’d been accused. 

None of that mattered so much as the critical thing: the last glance she’d stolen of Julian, mortally wounded, soaking the earth with his blood. Aredhel could not spare a thought for her own fate; all she cared about was Julian’s. 

And yet for all her magic—for all her years of practice—beneath her flattened palm, the gears of the lock would not so much as budge. 

  
  
  
  


_ “Mazelinka was right—you are trouble. But the good kind.” _

_ ‘No, Julian, you should have listened to Mazelinka. You should have turned me out into the night, to fend for myself—or you ought to have fled town, and put as much distance between us as physically possible.’ _

_ “I want to help you,”  _ he had said, again and again.  _ “Please, let me.” _

But what had helping Aredhel earned Julian in the end? Bleeding out in the grass with five sharp weapons still drawn on him, barely able to breath through his agony and not even attempting to resist his arrest. 

Aredhel had no doubt they would hold him as her co-conspirator; if she did not free herself, somehow, she knew the next time she saw Julian he would be swinging from a rope beside her. 

...When they had escaped the dungeon, Julian’s silver eye has reflected the night sky while he was catching his breath, looking up at her with a warmth that made it difficult to breathe.  _ “I haven’t missed it, you know. All the ways you’ve protected me today.” _

But it all comes down to this—to nothing—to a cramped cell in the dark, kneeling in a foul puddle, the liquid seeping into her dress as she sat with her ear to the lock, he palm flat against it. The skin of her cheek was tight with dried tears. Aredhel stares blankly ahead, straining her ears… but her magic was so far from her, and the lock did not click, and so despite all those years of practice, Aredhel was unable to protect anything, anyone. 

She felt another tear, warm and fat, slip down her cheek. It tickled her nostril, trickled into the corner of her mouth before Aredhel steeped herself, hardening her expression. 

_ ‘No _ . _ Not that again. Focus—he needs you.’ _   
  
  
  


By the time Aredhel had been shot—by the time Julian was snapping the arrow shaft in two, pulling it cleanly from her wound—news had spread that the Count’s murderer was loose on the castle grounds. By the time Julian’s own strange and inexplicable magic was taking effect, the guards’ number had doubled. 

Aredhel was too frightened to care. Two guards or ten—what difference did it make? She was pressing her hands into Julian’s wound ( _ how had he come to be wounded in the first place?  _ It had all happened so fast) and whispering half-sensical reassurances, desperate for an explanation, more desperate for a spell or a solution that would keep Julian from dying in her arms. Aredhel did not notice the guards—or at least, she did not acknowledge them—until they put their hands on her shoulders and tried to pull her away from Julian. 

She had turned on them with a feral snarl, these well-armored men and women, but neither the shine of their plate mail nor the sharpness of their weapons discouraged Aredhel from one last push; a fool’s hope. Though she had nearly spent her magic, she summoned the last dregs of it and  _ pushed,  _ and the sheer force of her magic sent half the ring of guards sailing through the outer walls of the hedge maze. 

The other half advanced on her. 

Julian tried to console her—“It’s okay! Aredhel, I’m alright, it’s okay.”—but his words meant nothing to her: she had offered him the same empty reassurances when she had been laid out, gurgling, bleeding, the life and light draining from her. She knew those words to be meaningless; they brought her no comfort. 

What  _ would  _ bring her comfort would be the chance to tend to Julian, unharassed: to lay her palms firmly on his torso, to put steady pressure on his inexplicable wound, to rack her brain until she found a way (magical or not) to staunch the bleeding, close the wound, ‘ _ anything, anything, to keep him breathing, heart beating, keep him here.’ _

The blood was still seeping through Julian’s jacket. His breathing was labored between his words (still trying to tell her everything would be okay, when it so clearly wouldn’t) and the roughness, the  _ violence _ with which the guards were attempting to  _ lift him to his feet, _ to lead him away from her—

Then there were hands on her shoulders. Before she could wrench herself free, a third guard closed their hand over her mouth, pressing a soaked rag to her face.

Aredhel’s body tightened, preparing to spring, to  _ push…  _ but she was too wild to control her breathing, heaving in such indignant fury. One breath and she could tell straightaway what it was dripping from the damp rag onto her face. The smell of it left her weak and loose-limbed, and hid her magic in a thick fog she could not penetrate. 

Magebane. 

Madness overtook her as the herb overpowered her senses. Too late she held her breath, tried to stop from inhaling, but the damage had already been done, and in any case, she could not stop crying—when had she  _ started _ crying? Aredhel could not remember the last time she had wept. She felt crushed beneath the weight of her own powerlessness—oh, and the dizziness of the magebane closing over her consciousness… and defeat nearly certain, now, but Aredhel had nothing in her left to give.   

_ “Ilya—!” _

Her throat tries to make the sound of his name. It is such an easy shape. How many times has it rolled off her tongue? Julian is on his knees, he is hanging his head—and fighting past the point of reason, Aredhel coiled her legs beneath her, readying for one last push. 

_ ‘Not like this. I won’t lose him like this.’ _

She launched onto her feet, lunging forward with such ferocity that the guards lost their grip on her. Freed of their hands on her! The elation made her lightheaded. She raced to where Julian knelt, undaunted by the guards that flanked him and held him still….

But all that bravery for nothing, in the end: her body fails her. The headiness of the magebane sweeps Aredhel’s legs out from under her, drags her into an exhaustion so deep that when she hits the ground, she does not feel it, already lost to a dark oblivion.   
  
  
  


_ “You’re a magician. Creative type. Surely you have some handy magic for that kind of thing.” _

Aredhel what was she without her magic? Proving useless. She had woken in the dark with just a yellow square of light to see by, slipping around iron bars—a window set high in a thick door. Aredhel had woken in a cell, a prisoner, and she had woken alone. 

And no matter how she reached for it (how she had screamed, fought, clawed for it) her magic was beyond her grasp. 

Aredhel had prepared her whole known life for this moment: Prakran locks, Hiberian locks, locks from as far as Chandalar. In three years she had not met a lock yet that can stand against her magic—and locks aside, the door was made of  _ wood _ . The image of Julian bleeding out on the palace grounds was burned into her memory, hot enough that she could surely set fire to the door and kick her way through the ashen lumber.

...but for the magebane. The herb’s insidious tendrils still bound her, and reaching for her magic was like trying to grasp at something thick and viscous and unyielding; it would not be held. 

Three years Aredhel had prepared for this moment, and now she had been struck at the knees: no matter what she tried, she could not rise to greet it. 

  
  
  


_ “You made short work of the lock at my old clinic. Why is this any different?” _

Aredhel had been reaching for her magic since she woke, ceaselessly, relentlessly, until it had left her weeping in frustration. Failing that, she had lifted herself to her feet and thrown her body against the door, screeching like a banshee in the haunted bogs. Her fists pounded the wood until it was quaking in its frame, until her hands were red and splintered and throbbing, but the door did not yield.

The ache in her fists, the muck in her clothes; the discomfort of these things was nothing compared to the weight of her shame, her embarrassment. She had tried to tell Julian. She had warned him not to help her, that it would only get him hurt. She had tried her best to push him away. Hadn’t she? 

...Or had she, selfishly, in some way (Gods forgive her)  _ encouraged _ him? Led him knowingly into danger, been foolish or prideful enough to think that she could shoulder the risk, that she could protect him….

_ ‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Julian.’ _

Aredhel had been selfish, reckless. Cruel, maybe, for allowing Julian to get so close to her, to put himself in danger for her. She had behaved terribly, and the consequences could not be more dire. 

But Aredhel Mooney was not a quitter. While she still drew breath, she would fight for him; it might not yet be too late. She could not allow herself to give up now, not when there was still a chance to find him, help him… apologize to him, for what he had suffered because of her. 

Blinking a tear from her eye, Aredhel pushed against the dull cloud of lethargy, grasping once more for her magic. 

The tumblers in the lock hardly made a sound, turning slowly if they were turning at all. 

  
  
  


_ “Come on, my darling little felon.” _

Julian’s easy grin on the threshold of the shop: the inviting curve of his lips, his beautiful silver eye lit up with a dare.  

_ ‘You led him here. You told him to trust you. This is your fault. If he dies, it’s your fault.’ _

Aredhel fought against the magebane violently, futilely; she reached for her magic until her head ached with it, until the exertion made her want to scream. 

Then, she reached farther. 

  
  
  


When the bolt clicked free, the door swung inward, but only an inch; Aredhel’s body, still crouched in the muddy puddle at the door of the cell, impeded its progress. 

“Aredhel, are you awake? Can you move a little bit? I can’t get the door open.”

Aredhel blinked, too stupefied to answer. Where the door had opened a sliver of golden light was cutting into the room, and it was brilliant and beautiful and her mind could not quite keep up with what was happening—not until Faust slipped her head between the door and the wall, and bopped her nose gently against Aredhel’s knee. 

“Faust!” Aredhel scooped the snake up, lifting Faust in her cupped palms while Faust wound her tail around Aredhel’s wrist. “I’m so sorry, Faust, I completely forgot—when did you sneak off?”

“While you were bleeding out on the lawn.” Asra replied on Faust’s behalf, his voice cool. “The very picture of discretion, just like you promised me at Brona’s. Now can I please come in?”

Aredhel stood, but halfway to her feet had to brace herself against the wall. Her legs had fallen asleep; the sudden vertigo of rising made her dizzy. How long had she been down here alone? Maybe longer than she had thought; was Julian—? But before she could ask the door swung fully open, and there stood Asra, wearing some of the most splendid clothing Aredhel had ever seen, with the key to her cell in his hand.

It shocked her speechless, but only for a brief moment before her thundering heart reminded her of her urgency. She rushed to Asra’s side, her fingers tightening in the fabric of his sleeves.

“Asra, how long have I been down here—? Nevermind, we have to go.” She tried to guide him backwards, through the open door and out into the hall as she explained, frantically, “I wasn’t alone, I was with Julian—please,  _ please _ , you have to help me find him, he—” he  _ what?  _ Aredhel still wasn’t sure what had happened, how he had done what he had done, but, “We were in the gardens, and I—I don’t know if he’s alright. Asra, there was so much  _ blood—! _ If he’s—if something— _ please, _ Asra—”

“Aredhel.  _ Aredhel. _ ” Asra said her name firmly, his hands rising to clasp around her arms. When he spoke again, his tone was calm—kind even—but his eyes had grown dark. 

“It’s okay, he’s fine. Julian’s fine. Take a deep breath, okay?”

“What do you mean, ‘he’s fine?’” Aredhel asked. “How can he possibly be fine? I saw him, Asra, I—”

“He’s recovering,” Asra explained gently. He smiled as if to reassure her, but Aredhel couldn’t help but think his grin looked more like a wince. “Nadia is talking to him now. She’s moved him to a more comfortable room.”

“Nadia?” Aredhel repeated, quizzically. Then her eyes widened. “Wait, Asra, do you mean he’s with the Countess? She’ll be furious with him—and you are leading me to her? Asra, she wants to hang me—”

“Not anymore, she doesn’t. You aren’t going to hang, Aredhel, I promise.” Asra reached up and untangled her fingers from his clothes, then closed his hands over Aredhel’s. Faust slithered over them, winding around their tangled fingers. “I’m sorry. I know this is a lot to process—a lot happened while you were down here, and I wanted to get you out, but I couldn’t. Not right away. Now, I can explain everything.” 

Then he smiled, something soft and defeated. “But all you really care about to start with is if he is okay, right?”

It sounded so silly when Asra says it like that, almost juvenile. But no matter what it sounds like (no matter how Asra choose to phrase it) that doesn’t make it any less the truth. Whatever Asra has come to tell her, Aredhel does not care— _ cannot _ care, cannot concentrate on it until she sees for herself that Julian is well. 

It isn’t that she doesn’t trust Asra. It’s that Aredhel had felt his blood warm and sticky between her fingers, and now she wanted ( _ needed _ ) to feel it now the way it should be: beneath his skin, pulsing through his veins, racing within him when she draws near to him and flushing his cold skin with warmth each time she caresses him. 

Asra’s face softens again. 

“Okay. Then let’s go.” 

  
  
  
  


When Julian woke, he did not know where he was. Healing always took a lot out of him; if he wasn’t careful, it could leave him just as woozy as too much drink. His first impression (eyelid fluttering open) was of softness and seabreeze from an open window, and colored light. It felt like an old forgotten memory, a cherished thing returning, and so, for a moment, Julian was at peace.

But then, the voice was a different voice. “Will you be honest with me, Doctor?”

A warm voice; refined, confident, articulate. A familiar voice: at Julian’s bedside was  none other than Countess Nadia Satrinava herself.

Wait; no— _ her _ bedside. Or one of? Julian took in the lavender sheets he’d been tucked beneath, the orchids on the nightstand, the drapes hung in the window that had colored the light and given the bedroom the illusion of being someplace else. 

( _ Where _ else? What was it he had felt he had returned to, briefly? A distant dream, slipping away from him, water cupped between his palms.) 

He was in one of the bedrooms at the palace. He had stayed here before; after the Countess had woken, Consul Valerius had asked him in the palace overnight, just in case his medical expertise was needed. Now that Julian thought of it, he had a vague memory of the hands of guards seizing him, lifting him, carrying him up here. But Julian had been so weak then; healing this particular wound was taxing him so heavily that he had been fading in and out of consciousness all the way up the stairs. He had barely been able to observe, nevermind protest, where they were taking him.

So it was that he now found himself under the piercing gaze of Countess Satrinava. Perhaps Julian should have been afraid. After all, the Countess had plenty of reasons to be angry with him. She had asked for Julian help in deciphering Aredhel’s drawings, and instead of providing the Countess with any meaningful guidance (though it was, in some sense, his civic duty to do so) he had been found inside castle walls—the Countess’s home!—aiding and abetting the very villain who had allegedly murdered her husband. 

But Countess Satrinava did not look angry with him, and Julian should know. Julian had been summoned to the palace to check in on her health more than once since she woke; he’d seen her react as she learned about everything she had missed while she was sleeping. He saw her receive the news of the flooded district, the abandoned public projects, the hungry populace. Yes, by now, Julian was well acquainted with her anger, and her frustration.

This, though… the way the Countess was looking at him now, she looked sad.

Still, even in sadness, the Countess’s eyes held his so firmly that Julian did not think he could look away from her if he wanted to—he  _ did _ want to. It was terrible, to be looked at like this: as a disappointment. A traitor. 

“I am told they looked everywhere for you, while I slept,” the Countess said. Her voice was unusually quiet. “They say the guards tore through the streets of Vesuvia, looking high and low for the mysterious figure who was mending bones with no more than the touch of his hand.” 

Then she could no longer look at him; her purple eyes fell from his, and her mouth set, as though she were determined to look resolved, without regret. 

“I needed you. The city fell into terrible disrepair without a strong leader to guide it. I could have been that leader. And yet you hid from my men, and you did not come to my side. I had believed us to be friends, both before and after Lucio’s death.” The Countess met his eyes again, an accusation in her glance. “Was I mistaken in my friendship?”

Julian couldn’t answer that. What was he supposed to say? If he  _ had _ been a friend to the Countess before the death of her husband (and before her own mysterious slumber) Julian certainly did not remember. 

And anyway, there was something on Julian’s mind that was far more pressing than any of that.

“Aredhel.” 

It was drawn from him soft like a sigh, like snow falling from the treetops, but Julian could feel his heart literally beat faster at just the shape of her name in his mouth, pulse rushing. “The guards—they shot her. Where is she? Is she alright?”

The Countess’s lips twitched in the corners, the barest flash of a smile before she controlled herself. Her gaze softened. “Asra the Magician is bringing her here as we speak.” 

_ Asra was with her! _ Julian’s eye fluttered shut as he said a silent prayer of thanks. He could weep from the crush of relief he felt. No matter how deeply Asra despised him (and Julian was sure that hate ran deep, though he still could not fathom what he had done to deserve such loathing) Julian knew that as long as Asra was with Aredhel, Asra would keep her safe. And he was bringing her here—! Soon, soon Julian would get to see her. Soon, he would know she was well. It would be well worth whatever verbal lashing Asra had prepared for him, if only to look on her again, to hold her hand. His heartbeat leapt like a colt at the thought.

The Countess did not share his relief; when Julian looked back at her, her were cheeks flushed, and her brow set, and—ah,  _ there _ it was: the anger. 

“I owe her an apology,” the Countess said, firmly. “My guards were told expressly not to shoot. Such force should never have been used, no matter the crimes of which she stands accused.” Her head fell a fraction of an inch, as though she were finding it difficult to hold Julian’s gaze. “I owe you an apology too, Doctor Devorak,” she told him, softly. “Though I do not fully understand what it is you have suffered, or endured.”

An apology? Julian found himself a little speechless—a rare occurrence. The Countess didn’t owe him that. She had already told him that Aredhel was safe; she was bringing Aredhel to his side. Others would have used their separation as leverage over the both of them, criminal and accomplice alike, and yet… and yet, as far as Julian could see, they were soon to be reunited.

Perhaps, then—to whatever end—a little honesty was owed.

“Thank you, Countess Satrinava,” Julian said. “Begging your pardon, however, but it sounds like you do have  _ some _ idea of what I’ve endured… the kinds of feats I am capable of.” 

“And I did hide from your guards,” Julian said, as he drew the lilac sheets down past his waist and untucked his shirt. “But it wasn’t because I didn’t want to help you.” Then he lifted the hem of his shirt, drawing it just high enough up his torso to reveal the injury: the very mortal wound he’d taken from Aredhel, saving her life in the process. 

Mere hours ago he had been bleeding out on the lawn. Now, the wound was closed with a thick scab, and had shrunk nearly a full quarter of its diameter. In another hour or two, it would be like the skin had never split in the first place.

Looking at it, the Countess’s brow knit in fascination. Maybe they had been friends long ago; Julian admired her tenacity, her curiosity, her intelligence. She did not lift her hands to touch him, but Julian could tell she wanted to—to brush her fingers over the once-fresh wound, and feel for herself how quickly and miraculously it had closed.

Julian explained: “Every injury I heal, I get to experience myself. Some heal faster than others. I don’t know why; it’s just how the magic works.” It was easier to speak (to breathe) when the Countess’s gaze was fixed on the wound, and not holding his eye; once he started, it was hard to stop. “Believe me, I wanted to help you. I wished I could. But I was afraid that if I tried to wake you, I’d only fall asleep myself, and maybe that was something I wouldn’t heal from. And I couldn’t risk that.” 

“Risk what, specifically?” the Countess questioned.

“Not being around,” Julian answered. “Not being able to help. I have—I did a lot of terrible things, Countess, when the plague was rampant in the city. This magic… it lets me help people in a way I never could before. To—to help atone, for all the times I failed to help in the past.”

The Countess’s face blurred; Julian tried to blink away his tears before they fell, and missed her move. She did touch him then, leaned forward and took his hand (his bare hand—someone had removed his gloves) between hers. They were warm, and incredibly soft. 

“If I had known that would be the price of your help, I would not have asked it,” she told him, apologetically. “And I am sorry that you had to live in fear for the past several years, hiding from people who would have taken it from you without your consent.”

Julian’s throat felt suddenly dry. He had touched her, of course, as a doctor touches a patient—clinically, and without feeling. But she was holding his hand so tenderly, and it felt… ( _ colored light days, daze, bells ringing, sunlight spilling _ )...like there was some truth to what she had said, about them being old friends. 

But he was staring at her, he realized, open-mouthed and stupid looking; he closed his mouth, cleared his throat, and tore his eye away. “You were asleep,” Julian told her, bashfully. “It was literally beyond your control.”

“It was the actions of my surrogates; whatever state I was in, it was my responsibility. And so I owe you a second apology, as well. When the dust settles, we will come up with some way to recompense you for what you have endured.” 

“When the dust settles?” Julian repeated, perking up. “Do you mean—does that mean I’m not going to hang? And Aredhel—”

“Little good it would do, it seems—hanging you,” the Countess replied, with a sly grin. She released his hand, eased back into her chaise. “But no, I have no intention of hanging you at this time. Nor do I intend to hang Aredhel, since it has come to my attention that my husband is not quite as dead as I’d been led to believe.”

But Julian wasn’t thinking of Lucio; he was no longer listening. Aredhel was free.  _ Aredhel was free. _ He wanted to leap from the bed and tell her as much, find her wherever she was (whatever path Asra was leading her down, to him) and lift her into the air and set her down and cradle her face against his, and cover her cheek with kisses, and do all of this in full view of everyone, since she no longer had reason to hide. The rapture of it made him lightheaded. The danger was past; Aredhel had no more reason to push him away, to keep him at arm’s length—!

...which meant (he realized, even in his euphoria) that it was also time for  _ him _ to stop doing the same. With the danger passed—with her name cleared—Julian had no more excuse to keep lying to her, as he had been since the very beginning. He would have to come clean to her at last, and hope his deception was not so onerous that it pushed her away from him entirely. But not yet! No, he would give himself this—this reunion, just to hold her, see her,  _ be _ with her one last time—

“However, while we are settling old scores, Doctor Devorak, it would seem there is one that still needs answering.”

Julian snapped to attention, shaking himself out of his reverie and turning back to the Countess. She was watching him with a knowing smile, holding an eggshell-thin tea cup to her lips. 

Nadia took a sip, then set the tea cup down, and gave Julian her full, piercing attention. “Julian Devorak, I sent you from this castle not a week ago under instruction to go through Aredhel Mooney’s documents and find me proof of her guilt, that I might use to justify her execution. How is it that, then, you have come to be sneaking around my home with her?”

There it was. He’d been a fool to think that wouldn’t come up eventually. And perhaps he ought to use this opportunity as an audition for honesty: to come clean to the Countess in a way he had not yet done with Aredhel, so that (perhaps) when the time came to tell her (when it really counted) he would not trip over his words so badly, having had to explain it once already. 

But that did not feel right; Julian could not really justify giving the Countess the truth, while he still kept Aredhel in the dark. And in any case, his mind was spinning—relief, elation— _ jewel-toned memory _ —and he probably couldn’t string the tale together if he tried. After all, Julian couldn’t make sense of it himself; he wasn’t sure how he’d be able to explain it all to someone else. Embarrassed, Julian colored. 

“I beg your pardon, Countess, but that’s… well, it’s complicated.”

The Countess laughed brightly. “So loose and honest with the secrets of your miraculous regeneration, yet so tight lipped when I asked about her.” Her eyes glittered with amusement, and a trace of affection. “Why is that, I wonder?”

But before Julian could answer, the double doors of Nadia’s bedroom swung open. 

And there, in between the bodies of fully armored guards stood Aredhel. She was taller than each of them, and stood with more power and authority than either of them—even as she was in the servant’s uniform she’d borrowed from Portia, now liberally stained with dirt and blood. Her flesh was cut and bruised from her brawl with the guards on the grounds, and her fists were clenching and unclenching at her sides, and her face was pinched with worry. 

She looked like a disaster; she took Julian’s breath away. His heart felt like it would leap out of his chest at the sight of her. He planted his hands in Nadia’s mattress, pushing himself up, sitting straight. 

“Aredhel!”

Before he had finished the sound of her name she was running to him. No decorum held her back: covered in dried blood and dungeon filth, still she flung herself straight into Countess Satrinava’s bed and into Julian’s arms. The warmth of her body! The rush of her blood beneath her skin, flush against his! Julian swept his arms around her, holding her fast to him, burying her nose against her scalp and breathing in the smell of her skin, sweat, hair: real, alive,  _ here _ .

“Complicated. I see.” The Countess’s voice was soft, barely more than a whisper, a teasing note in her voice. “Very well. We’ll have plenty of time to talk again later, you and I.”

She rose from the chair and made for the door, her dress billowing behind her like a sigh. At the far end of the room she joined Asra (who gave Julian a hard look, but said nothing) and then exited with him, the doors closing gently behind them, leaving Julian and Aredhel alone.

Aredhel knew it, too. As soon as the doors clicked shut she lifted her face from Julian’s neck. To Julian’s alarm, her eyes were red—she had been crying. ( _ ‘Only red from crying. Nothing else, nothing more.’ _ ) Tears dampened her cheeks, and when she lifted her hand to his face, her expression shuddered between relief at their reunion, and a simmering fury that Julian could only imagine came from her indignation at having ever been parted from him.

“I was so worried about you,” she told him, halfway between a desperate hiss and a whisper. Then her voice pitched towards something more panicked, a tone he had never heard her use—it frightened him. “They drugged me, and I—oh, gods, Julian, I thought—!”

“No, hey,” Julian said, lifting his hands to her face. His fingers swept the tears from her cheeks, brushed gently over her hairline. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Here, look.”

Gently Julian pushed her away from him (though it hurt, to let her go when all he wanted to do was hold her close until his racing heart calmed, pressing chest-to-chest until it beat in time with hers) and lifted his shirt again. Aredhel’s eyes widened in wonder. Where the Countess had hesitated, Aredhel did not; she brushed her fingers gently over the scab, pressing gently, surprised at its strength. Julian did not so much as wince. 

“How…?” she began, as awed as she was troubled, puzzled. The mystery of the wound had slowed her breathing and calmed her. Then her head tilted, and fixed her gaze on the patch over his eye. “May I?”

Julian nodded. Aredhel’s fingers slipped gently beneath the patch and lifted it. Her expression darkened. Julian knew what she had found: he’d seen it enough times himself, watching in the mirror after he’d used his ability. The sigil in his eye had taken on a shimmering hue, its magic activated when he had taken Aredhel’s wound unto himself, and still simmering as his body fought to knit itself back together. 

(How strange it felt, to look at her with both eyes. How she looked so present, dimensional, real;  _ too _ real, as though a creature as exquisite as her should remain in the realm of dreams and fantasy, and that only audacity and extraordinary will had brought her here, to the waking world, to his side.)

Her thumbs stroked Julian’s cheeks, each gentle caress drew a deeper flush of color to them. “When did you get this ability?”

Julian caught each of her hands with his own. A jolt went through him at the sudden contact. Other than the time he had healed her of her hangover (his fingers pressed to her temples, the gentle light spilling in through the kitchen window of his flat) he had never touched her with his bare hands. It was electrifying. He could feel his cheeks flushing a deeper shade of red, but still he held her hands—gently, carefully, his fingers smoothing over her the bones of her wrists.

“Three years ago, give or take,” he said. He was smiling—it wasn’t appropriate to the somber discussion at hand, but he couldn’t help but smile stupidly just to see her, to be near her, to hold her naked hands in his. “I didn’t know at first, or didn’t realize. I think Mazelinka knew for awhile and hid it from me.”

“Because you suffer,” Aredhel said, quietly. Her eyes fell back to the wound, and she lay her hand over it, palm flat across his stomach. “You feel it. Don’t deny it—I saw you in the garden.”

“A small price to pay,” Julian said, with a shrug he hoped was convincing enough not to invite question. “That kind of pain is only temporary. Even a little cathartic, maybe.”

She didn’t buy that; one look made that clear. But then Aredhel’s face softened; her hand slid upwards beneath the hem of his shirt, and came to rest over his pounding heart.

She bit her lip; releasing it, whispered, “You saved my life.”

Her hand was warm in his, her other held gently above his racing heart; her eyes were wonderfully round, looking at  _ him _ in wonder, moon-like. Yet all Julian felt was the weight of the secrets he held, still, between them. All of the things he had not told her: things he had kept from her deliberately for too long, pretending it was for her own good when in reality he had only been protecting himself. And then, of course, there were the secrets he had not yet admitted even to himself, though it was growing harder and harder to deny them.

“Don’t mention it,” he said, hoarsely, sheepishly. “That is, well, I… circumstances being what they were….”

All the dishonesty still between them. The sins she might forgive, and those she might not. None of that changing a thing. Despite and regardless of circumstances being what they were,

“Of course I did,” Julian said, softly but firmly.  _ And I’d not hesitate to do it again.  _

Aredhel lifted their joined hands and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “Thank you.”

Julian shook his head, pulling the meat of his cheek between his teeth and chewing anxiously. “I should have told you,” he said, somberly. “I wanted to—I  _ meant _ to. And then in the gardens, when I saw how much I had upset you, when you—when you thought I was…” He pulled their joined hands to his own mouth, kissing Aredhel’s fingertips, his eyelashes beating against his cheeks. 

“The way you were fighting the guards… I was so worried they’d shoot you a second time, just to subdue you. I was terrified that it would all be for nothing—that I would lose you anyway, and through no fault but my own, for not being honest with you when I still had the chance.”

A strange expression flickered across her face, but it was gone just as soon as Julian noticed it, too fast for him to read it. “What held you back?”

Julian laughed, lighting; this deception was the most easily explicable, the least malicious. “I don’t know if you know this, Aredhel, but most people don’t look at you kindly once they’ve learned there’s an evil curse upon you.” He grinned at her, lifting his free hand to push her hair from her face, brush some of the dirt from her jaw. “And,” he admitted, more quietly, “because technically, that made me a fugitive, too. When we first met, you didn’t trust me, and I…”

_ ‘Felt so much, then. Almost too much, right from the beginning, and it’s made me frightened of losing you ever since. So frightened I’ve lied to keep you.’ _

(He would have to tell her the truth. But he couldn’t; not yet, not after he had just gotten her back.)

“...I didn’t want to give you the wrong impression,” he finished.

Aredhel’s brow lifted, the corners of her mouth lifting. “So you’re telling me that all this time, while you’ve been leading me through hidden alleys, secret tunnels, all up and down the aqueduct—”

“Familiar stomping grounds, so to speak,” Julian answered. “The guards have gotten close to catching me mid-heal more than once, and some of them give chase much better than others. I’ve had to be creative.”

She grins wide as the horizon, and leans towards him the way the sun kisses the sea, and Julian feels as if his very  _ soul _ is luminescent, glittering, magnificent under her rosy light. “You  _ scoundrel, _ ” she whispers against his lips, and it sends a tingle running down his spine, straight between his legs. “I can’t believe you kept this from me.”

_ ‘You haven’t a clue how much I’ve kept from you.’ _

(But he couldn’t tell her. He could not risk losing her now, when she was looking at him like that.) 

—there it was again, that shadow on her face. Something reserved—closed to him, but undeniably anxious. 

“What is it?” he asked her. “Did something else happen? Did you remember something?”

Aredhel opened her mouth, struggled with her answer—but before she had a chance to reply, the doors burst open. Portia stood in the doorway, and one look at her face was all Julian needed to see to know that he was in trouble.

Portia crossed the room and launched herself onto the bed with surprising force. Aredhel backed away just as Portia reached forward and seized Julian’s arm, giving it a hard pinch. “ _ That’s _ from Mazelinka,” she said, then gave his ear tug rough enough to leave him with his eyes watering, “and  _ that’s  _ from me. What were you thinking?! You promised me you would be careful. I told you to stay out of trouble!”

Aredhel had risen from the bed and was now standing to the side. Incredibly, she looked like she was trying to avoid Portia’s notice and make a go for the doors. 

Portia wasn’t having any of it. “Oh no you don’t!” she said, rising up onto her knees and pointing squarely at Aredhel. “Milady sent me up here to bring you down to breakfast, and that’s exactly where you’ll be going in a minute. Just as soon as I’m done yelling at my brother for being reckless, and irresponsible, and—” Portia’s breath hitched. Her eyes began to water. “And for leaving so much  _ blood _ behind, and nearly giving his s-sister heart failure, and—”

“Oh, Pasha,” Julian said, lifting himself up to hug her, gently. “I’m sorry for making you worry. Please don’t cry. Haven’t you heard? It’s alright, now; we aren’t going to hang.”

“No, that isn’t true,” Portia said, sniffling. She extracated herself form the hug and looked daggers at Julian. “Milady has decided not to hang you. Me? I might decide to do it anyway, as payback for making me worry about you all the time.” 

Then Portia cuffed him playfully on the ear, and hoisted herself out of bed. “C’mon, Aredhel,” Portia said, with a grin like nothing had happened. “It’s a lovely day, and the cook made some of milady’s personal favorites.”

But “Aredhel,” Julian called, before his sister could lead her away.

(The feel of her name on his tongue; she turned to face him, and at the sight of her face, his heart leapt like salmon running upriver, like the light that flashes on their scales.) 

“Will you come find me, after?” he asked her, trying to keep the desperation out of his voice. 

Aredhel grinned. She rushed back to his side, took his hand between hers and pressed it over her heart as she leaned over him and kissed him. Her lips were insistent and soft, and he could feel her eyelashes brushing against his cheeks. 

“I promise you,” she told him, “I will be back as soon as I can.”

And how soon would that be, Julian wondered? And would he be ready—now that the danger had passed and their lives were no longer at stake, and Julian’s excuses had run out—to finally be honest with her, her when she returned? She looked back twice at him as Portia led her out of the room; he saw her still holding his gaze when the door closed between them. He saw the yearning in her face, and the affection. If he was ever to deserve either, he would have to find a way to tell her the truth. He would have to be brave. 

But if anyone was worth that risk, she was. Julian laid back in the pillows and turned his gaze to the ceiling, thinking back to how all of his had begun—years ago, long before Aredhel had ever returned to Vesuvia.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hooray! An update!
> 
> I'm sorry for the wait on this one, readers, especially with the cliffhanger in the last chapter. I never intended for the wait to be this long. I lost my job back in May (this was in fact a good thing) and it caused me to do a bit of soul-searching. I was hired at my current job less than a month later. I am very happy where I am now, but the job is very different. I've gone from working from (on average) 30 hours a week to around 50+. (Things will probably slow down in August, but not too much, and not before then.)
> 
> It was always my intention to get back to writing when I had time. I'm not sure what is going to happen to my other writing projects, but this piece remains a priority for me. I am committed to finishing it. Updates might take longer and (as in this case) be a little shorter, but I know how the story ends, I already have the next several chapters plotted out, and I am very invested in completing the story, no matter how long it takes.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who held out for this update. The encouragement I received made me very grateful; it was always very kind and never pushy. To everyone who said they were re-reading this while waiting for an update, you made my heart glow.


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